Bryan Lee O’Malley is the 29-year-old creator of the Scott Pilgrim
books, a popular comic book series that integrates familiar Gen Y
tropes (the eponymous Scott is an emotionally underdeveloped slacker
who can barely hold down a job) with fantasy elements borrowed from
videogames (in order to win over his new girlfriend, Scott must do
battle with her seven evil exes). There’s talk of an upcoming movie
directed by Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz) and starring Arrested
Development‘s Michael Cera. O’Malley will be signing at Cosmic
Monkey along with his wife, award-winning cartoonist Hope Larson.
I find it interesting that Scott Pilgrim is a coming-of-age
story, but Scott’s in his 20s. Is 23 the new 17?
Scott Pilgrim is definitely a 23-year-old who’s emotionally arrested
at age 17. That part is intentional, at least. As a person who had a
miserable college experience and didn’t really date between the ages of
18 and 22, that was a natural thing to want to explore. And anyway, I
don’t know if it’s a coming-of-age story. Maybe more of a “coming to
your senses” story.
Fantasy elements are integrated very casually into your
storylines—it’s taken for granted that characters have videogame
fights and travel on subspace highways through each others’ heads. Race
and sexuality are handled in the same casual way, with little
explication. Why did you choose to present the material
this
way?
I think it’d be nonsense if I tried to present my attitudes going
into the Scott Pilgrim series as in any way intelligent or meaningful.
I just wrote what came naturally to me in 2004, and any
enlightened-seeming approach was just a happy accident. I don’t have
any deep thoughts on race or sexuality. I am of mixed ethnicity, and I
have known a few gay people. That’s about the extent of it. I try to
present these things warmly and accurately.
The series isn’t finished yet, obviously—will the movie be
based on the completed series, or just a few
books?
The movie is going to be one complete story. The creators of the
film have consulted with me extensively ever since we began talking
about it, and we’ve had sort of a symbiotic relationship. They’ve
definitely influenced the books to a degree, too.