This You Might Like It is a tale of two Scotts for me. You see, the man responsible for introducing me to Scott Pilgrim is Scott McCloud, perhaps the best known critical commentator on comics as an art form. McCloud’s best known for his series of books that approach comics from a scholarly yet accessible angle–Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics and Making Comics. He also did a spectacular series called Zot! which I’m considering for a future YMLI. Anyway, McCloud was touring the states a few years ago to promote his latest work, and during his lecture he mentioned a number of comics he felt were noteworthy in helping to shape the comic medium. One that got the nod was Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim–which if you haven’t heard of yet you certainly will when the feature film comes out late this year or early next (Michael Cera from Arrested Development, Juno and Superbad plays the titular Scott Pilgrim). But why wait on a film adaptation when you could pick up a couple of paperbacks and discover for yourselves the exciting, bizarre action-romance-comedy, with a liberal splash of 1990s gaming nostalgia?

Is this awesome Y/N?

Read the rest of this entry »

I love American comics. When saying this, I always try to make it clear that this doesn’t mean Spider-Man and Batman. The long-running Marvel and DC superhero series all have their fine moments worth reading, of course (I highly recommend works such as Batman: Year One, Superman: Red Son and the Marvel 1602 miniseries). But their mythologies have never interested me much simply because there’s so much of it! I’m sure it’s not any hurdle to really throw myself in to the comics if I wanted to, but I love a good starting point; I like to read from the beginning to the end or the most recent volume, uninterrupted, without having to do more than pick up a trade paperback. Laziness? Absolutely. But there’s plenty of works for me to sink my teeth into so I feel no guilt over my sloth–I just finished Y: the Last Man, I’ve devoured most of Hellboy, and I plan to start on Image Comics’s Invincible at some point. Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to a comic that matches this profile to a tee–high quality, compact but masterfully crafted mythology, and a series run that’s notable, but not daunting. I speak, of course, of Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo. Quick and Dirty/why it’s not furry after the jump.

Usagi Yojimbo's author prides himself on historical accuracy. Except when awesome.

Read the rest of this entry »