When you think of comic books, who do you think of? Maybe it’s Superman, Batman, or Spiderman. But all of those are superheroes. What about regular comic books? Stuff that turns out in books instead of subscriptions. Well you might think a few different things, and I hope one of them is Scott Pilgrim. If you’ve never heard about Scott Pilgrim, you might be either uncultured or perhaps just simply don’t know the best comic book character. Either way, this is about the first book, so expect some minor spoilers. Scott Pilgrim is an adult book, if you aren’t comfortable with adult themes, this article may not be for you.
The first book opens with a line that tells us who the main character is, “Scott Pilgrim is dating a high schooler.” This first line tells us immediately who Scott is: a jerk. Immediately after, we are introduced to the actual appearance of most characters. The first one is Stephen Stills who is the lead and talent of the band that the other characters play in: Sex Bob-Omb. Besides him, we see Young Neil, who lives with Stephen. He won’t be the most important, but he is a major character. Next, we see Kim Pine, the band’s drummer. Lastly, we find the jerkwad himself, Scott Pilgrim who is the main character of this series. Kim immediately comments that Scott (who is dating a high schooler) is 23. Stephen asks what her name is, to which Scott responds, “Knives Chau”. According to Scott, they met on the bus after Knives dropped her books. With the end of that, we reach the start of chapter 1.
We meet Wallace Wells, Scott’s roommate and a fan-favorite character. We quickly see that Scott is a slob and owns almost nothing in the apartment. Afterwards, we see Knives for the first time outside of a house alongside Scott, where he is repeatedly telling her to be good, to which Stephen opens the door wondering what Scott is making her do. After being introduced to everyone, Knives sits down as we see Sex Bob-Omb play for the first time. Of course, as this is a comic book we don’t actually hear any music, but Knives seems enchanted. After Scott walks Knives to the bus, Stephen and Kim give their opinion on the relationship, Stephen being fine with it while Kim thinks Scott is evil. In the middle of the night, we see Scott’s sister, Stacey, call him since she heard about Knives. When pressed, she says she learned it from Wallace. After the phone call ends, we see Scott and Wallace walking to the high school where Knives is, while Scott compares himself to the main character from Trainspotting. As Knives comes out of school, Scott introduces Wallace as “My Cool Gay Roommate” which has been hinted at for a while. Knives asks Wallace if he wants to know the gay guys in her class, to which Scott tells Wallace to leave. As Wallace leaves he tells Knives that she is too good for Scott, something that is a constant recurring theme throughout the series. After Scott and Knives go on a small walk together inside Goodwill, Scott has a dream about a girl traveling through his mind on roller skates.
After having lunch with Wallace, we see him not being allowed to talk about the dream where he sees the girl from his dreams again in the real world because he is with Knives at this moment so he can’t say anything. We see Scott blanking out as Knives asks if he knows the girl, to which he says that he doesn’t think so. Later, Sex Bob-Omb is practicing but Scott is not playing at all which his bandmates think is due to Knives. Scott ends up seeing the girl in a dream again and he notices that he is dreaming once he sees her. Later, we see Scott and his friends going to a party hosted by someone named Julie. At the party, Scott is seen talking with someone when he learns the name of the girl in his dreams: Ramona Flowers.
After attempting to talk to Ramona and failing horribly, Scott stalks Ramona before asking others about her until he talks to Julie, where he learns that Ramona recently had a big breakup. Immediately after, Julie forbids Scott from hitting on Ramona. This leads us to the end of the evening after the party, where Wallace comes home drunk, as Scott rambles about Ramona. The next morning, Scott remembers that Ramona works for Amazon and decides to order some CDs in the hopes of meeting Ramona again. As Scott orders the CD, an email comes in from a guy named Matthew Patel, who says they will be fighting soon. Scott being the imbecile that he is, deletes the email because he thinks it’s boring. When Scott finishes ordering the CD, he waits at the door, only to be met by Knives who he is supposed to be hanging out with. During this time, Scott is extremely out of it and seems to be in his own head. This later leads to the night where, before leaving, Knives gives Scott a kiss, which makes him immediately run off in a panic as if he is Wil E Coyote. Scott returns home and asks for the package, to which Wallace tells Scott that he won’t get it since it’s the weekend. This prompts Scott to sleep for 16 hours. We are unsure if it’s hyperbole. Sunday Evening, it turns out that Stephen got Sex Bob-Omb a show, which Knives decides to go despite it being past her curfew. Stephen reveals a little bit more about the show, saying that they are playing with Crash and the boys, a band that Scott seems to hate. Scott then has one more dream showing Ramona at his door, but he ends up getting to the door to see her drop off a package.
As soon as Scott sees Ramona, he asks her to go out with him. Keep in mind, that he still is going out with knives. Scott tries to ask why he sees Ramona in his dreams, but what she says makes no sense. According to Ramona, Scott’s head is basically a very convenient highway which lets her go 3 miles in 15 seconds. Scott is of course confused, but apparently, that’s because he is Canadian. After a bit of banter, Ramona and Scott agree to hang out later as long as Scott signs the package. Later that night, Ramona and Scott meet up at a park. They both talk about their lives and also Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. After a 4th wall break and a joke about Scott sleeping with a guy, the weather starts to get colder as snow starts pouring down. Scott is soon taken through a mysterious door which leads them to Ramona’s apartment. Ramona offers Scott some tea and due to her variety, Scott just goes with the same thing Ramona wants. As the tea cools, Ramona goes to grab Scott a blanket and decides to change clothes along the way, this ends up with Scott seeing her changing which leads to a hug, then a kiss, and then they start to get ready to sleep together, but decide to sleep with each other instead. The next morning, Scott reluctantly wakes up due to Ramona needing to go to work. As Scott leaves, he asks Ramona for this to not be a one-night stand and invites her to watch his band play, and she accepts. Scott finally returns home to an annoyed Wallace who informs him of a letter on the bar directed towards him. Wallace inquires about Scott’s night before telling him to break up with his “fake high school girlfriend.” before asking about the letter. It’s another letter from Matthew Patel talking about a fight. After throwing away the letter, Scott invites Wallace to the show his band is playing at and Wallace says he will only if Scott breaks up with Knives.
You would expect me to go ahead and tell you the rest of the story right? Well due to both time constraints and the fact that the book is ⅔ done, I now will encourage you to read the book yourself. Bryan Lee O’Malley made an absolute masterpiece and I heavily recommend checking the book out. In fact, the first two books are actually part of our school’s library. The entire series can easily be gotten both physically and digitally. There are two different versions, one in color and one in black and white. There is also a movie that has a slightly different ending and a TV show with a slightly different start.
