Scott Pilgrim – The Awesome Zeitgeist.

Scott Pilgrim against the world. A comic book released in the form of books, 5 released and 6 total planned, by Bryan Lee O’Malley.  Well, there’s a movie now so I’m sure more people will hear of it, and hopefully the creator will also earn more money. It’s not like independent comic writers (comic sold through Oni Press, which houses a lot of independent and manga publications) are known for the piles of money they swim in.

Anyway, it may very well be that Scott Pilgrim is a reflection of the generation that I am a member of, the “Y Generation”, or in the case is, which Scott Pilgrim makes quite convincing, the “Yeah! Generation.” You see, Scott Pilgrim feels to me like an invention that hails in spirit from Seattle, though it’s actually Canada, but let us assume that it is Seattle’s spirit for the moment, the city that had brought us Grunge, the city that had brought has Starbucks. In other words, it’s a hipster city. I have hipster friends who live in Seattle or in its environs and whom I can think of as “Seattleans” in my mind – even though I’ve never actually been to Seattle myself.

So Scott Pilgrim against the world. The plot as there may be is that Scott falls in love with this girl called Ramona (note, it’s been two-three years since I’ve read any Scott Pilgrim). But there’s a problem, Ramona’s evil ex-boyfriends, all seven of them. What follows is a mocking super-hero-esque series of fights where the hipster, broke, slacker Scott Pilgrim is someone we (IIRC)  find out to have never lost a fight, and who is “too cool for school”.

Note: It’s been a couple of years since I’ve read Scott Pilgrim, so on one hand consider it a review of my memory of the comic, and on the other, I use it as a stepping stone to speak of a wider issue. Thank you.

My Room, July 2009.

For the Otacool contest ran by DannyChoo, I took some pictures of my room as it looked during July 2009. I actually have pictures of my room from various states of dis-array for at least three and a half years, but here I’ll show you the most recent configuration.

It is I

I think this is a pretty good picture of myself, considering I took it with the camera held at arm’s length. Yes, my beard is red.

Also, before you go further, my room is not messy, it is busy. It’s what you get when you take two rooms’ worth of stuff and stuff them into one room. I know where things are, and aside from my RAM pile, it’s pretty organized, as much as space permits.

What I Purchased Recently. Or, I am Poor.

These are the things I’ve purchased over July, ok, the Wave Rei pre-order was today. This is why I am currently poor. The pre-orders are what will keep me poor. There are really nice signed copies of most of Roger Zelazny‘s books on eBay right now, but I’m not bidding. He’s my favourite author.

Figures:

• Yoko Rittona/Littner’s Nendoroid, which had been reviewed.
• Otaku Yuki, which came with Haruhi-chan 3’s limited edition, which had been reviewed.
• Banpresto’s Neliel tu Oderschvanck, not yet received (When I write a review, I’ll tell you what I was thinking…)

RPGs:

• GURPS: Transhuman Space corebook, second hand.
• Messiah Ashcan, second hand.
• Sign in Stranger preview edition, second hand.
• Best Friends, second hand.
• Bloodstained Stars limited ed sourcebook for Burning Empires (technically a pre-order).

Miniatures:

• Epic Lylyth, Shadow of Everblight.
• Epic Supreme Archdomina Makeda.
• Legion of Everblight Blighted Archers, full unit (60% off).
• Blighted Archers’ Unit Attachment (60% off).

Others:

• Tony Taka’s Shining World artbook. Magnificent. Since I dawdled when J-List had it, I ended up paying a pretty penny for it. But it was worth every penny.
• Eisenhorn omnibus.
• Formula P3 Basic miniature painting techniques DVD.
• No Quarter #25 (For the Mk. 1 rules for the Retribution of Scyrah).
• The manga of Haruhi-Chan 3, in Japanese.
• Regular comic haul: New Fullmetal Alchemist manga (volume 19, was great), new Knights of the Dinner Table and Hellblazer (which I finally cut off).

Pre-ordered:

• Rei Ayanami Plugsuit version by Wave (via HLJ) – Late November release.
• Aegis Figma, Persona 3, by Max Factory  (via Hobby Search) – October release.
• Saber Lily Nendoroid, by Good Smile Company (via Hobby Search) – October release.
• Dengeki Hime with Komaki Aika figure – July release, not yet shipped for some reason (via HLJ).

Watchmen Review

This will have spoilers. Be ready.

I’ll begin by saying that this is not me talking about my hopes for the movie, I watched the movie. The widely to be released version, dunno about the “Director’s Cut” version.

The short versions is: Unimpressed. Some people who left the screening (we were all comic book readers) said it was “Shit”, and some said they had a lot of fun, but the number of nay-sayers was rather large; I usually notice that people say it’s good or don’t form an opinion after watching a much awaited film, and the negativity mostly comes after 2-3 days, when they think about it, and realize what they’ve seen. I may be off base here, but there it is.

I assume most of you have read the comic book, but for those of you who haven’t, my description of the movie will be lacking, but I will pre-empt those who talk about “Reviewing the movie, and not the comic book” that I actually think it did better as an adaptation than as a movie in its own right.
Many of the points will seem small on their own, but they add up to the movie having neither a real soul nor its own cohesive identity. Aside from the thoughts on the aesthetics, which are small and petty.