What A Long Strange Trip Its Been

I wish I had a time machine...

Sometime long ago it seems I picked up a small volume from Oni Press because the cover caught my eye. It was Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life and I was hooked. The art style seemed plugged into my nerd reference/video game fueled/indie sensibility brain and nested there. I had recently been dealing with some family tragedy and this small volume made me smile and laugh and proceed to pass it out to my friends (first going to my fellow astronaut Shaka). Luckily I was a little late to the Scott Pilgrim game (hey I was a broke college student when the first one came out and then I was living in Korea…cut me some slack) so I had a couple more volumes to pick up.

What followed was an experience that hooked into the nerd zeitgeist and the general malaise that comes from being in your early twenties and all of a sudden facing a world that isn’t as safe as you may have once believed. The characters were great and the art was amazing. Wallace is probably one of my favorite roommate characters ever. I finished the next three volumes like hot cakes. I went out and started buying Oni Press releases and discovered Queen and Country and Local and a ton of other insane and awesome things. In some ways Scott Pilgrim turned me back into a comic book nerd (I also rediscovered my love of Vertigo titles around then). Then Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe came out and it was bittersweet. By far the most mature and serious volume of the comic, it was also one of the most interestingly told. Most of Scott Pilgrim’s fights and antics take place in the background as the relationships around him change (and not always for the better) as his friends grow up. Alas it was also the penultimate volume, and I knew the journey was soon to be over.

Today the folks over at Oni Press announced the final volume’s release date. So take out your pens and mark this down: July 20th. I’d just like to salute the people over at Oni for giving comics out of the mainstream a platform to find success, and Bryan Lee O’Malley for creating a world and a character that has provided me and my friends with laughter (and sometimes a little sadness) over the past couple of years. Three beers to you ser.