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?

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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.

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Okay, so we established last week that I love platformers. It’s also a fact that I love Nethack, possibly the finest procedurally generated Roguelike dungeon crawler out there.  So when I learned through one of the BoingBoing.net of a game that was described as a combination of La-Mulana (which I wasn’t familiar with) and Nethack (which I was intimately familiar with), exactly half of my attention was earned. And when I downloaded Spelunky, and gave it a try, I immediately saw why this game was being called a contender for the best freeware title of the year…in January. The many reasons why (and a link to get it) after the jump.

This minigame sums up almost every deathtrap in Spelunky in one go.

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This week’s You Might Like It concerns the Japanese freeware adventure game Doukutsu Monogatari, known in the West as Cave Story. It’s excellent for a lot of reasons, but I’ll get to those in a minute. First I have to set the stage. I might as well get the Quick-and-Dirty out of the way before the break.

Well, this isn't the worst place I've woken up with a hangover...

The Quick and Dirty
- Cave Story info, walkthrough, and downloads for the game and translation patch at
http://www.miraigamer.net/cavestory/
- A platformer in the vein of Metroid or Castlevania
- Freeware, made single-handedly by one-man team Studio Pixel
- Other draws: emotive and adorable characters, original weapons and power-up system, holds its own against classics in the platformer genre. It’ll also be coming to the Wii via Wiiware in the future!

Now, I’m going to get a bit…scholarly.

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I place the blame squarely on Yamcha.

I know when and where I was when it happened. I was sitting in the airport, waiting for my flight home. It was December 17, 2007. I was bored, and I had an internet connection, so to kill the time I decided to take a few minutes to try this game Yamcha had recommended. “Kingdom of Loathing”–what a nonsensical thing to name an online RPG, I thought. Well, I’d give it a spin anyway. I remember thinking as I logged on, hey, if I like this, I might get a couple of months’ worth of entertainment out of it!

Yeah, right.

One year to the day later I found myself sitting in the same airport, playing the same game, and a bit stunned at the year-long journey into a bizarre blend of pop-culture, gaming satire and surprisingly deep gameplay I’d undertaken–and am still undertaking!

The dreaded sabre-toothed lime, both feared enemy and loyal citrus-based familiar.

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Protip: if you’re part of a blogging team, try to post an update frequently enough that you don’t have to reset your password and reintroduce yourself every time you decide to get off your butt.

Well, that’s the position I find myself in. I’m Mr Bound, I blog here about every…six months? My own interests skew distinctly American. Sure, my favorite film’s Princess Mononoke, and the Nausicaa manga is among my favorite all-time reads, but in the past I’ve blogged about things like the American animated series Avatar and films like Cloverfield. And now, my plan is to get back on the blogowagon by starting a new feature, entitled You Might Like It. I’ll tackle games, comics, and even the odd TV show that you may have never heard of but might (in my estimation) enjoy.

That’s about it until this Friday, but expect me to encourage submissions from readers of this fine blog for things to review! My interests are broad, so don’t be shy!