I know I’m coming really late to the party on this, but I finally got around to reading Scott Pilgrim Vol. 1 (which Adam got me for Christmas – thanks Adam!) and I pretty much loved it.  It was so fun and light and enjoyable.  Not that the other comics I read on a daily basis aren’t fun and light and enjoyable (although sometimes they are the exact opposite of that), but there was a real ease to the Pilgrim stuff that I realized I totally miss out on in most of the stuff I read these days.

There was also a moment…and it’s a moment that happens for me…or has happened for me in I think every comic I’ve ever ended up truly loving…where the writer/artist totally hooks me and allows me to commit wholeheartedly to the book.  A moment where I say to myself, “Okay, I’m in…you’ve got me.”

And Scott Pilgrim had that moment.  It’s a really small thing, but it was just this one perfect panel that allowed me to open my heart to the book and characters and just love it.  Let me show you.  First you need to have a reference image for what the panel is talking about.  This is Ramona Flowers.

She is a girl that has been showing up in Scott Pilgrim’s dreams of late, and he’s pretty smitten, though he doesn’t know who she is.

And this.  This is Scott Pilgrim trying to figure out who she is by asking his friend Wallace.

OMG.  I AM DYING FROM TEH CUTE!  Ahem.  No, seriously, there’s something about the realness and adorableness about that panel that just hooks me.  Because first of all, though the dialogue is simple, it’s actually quite accurate I think to how a conversation like that goes…and it just feels SO real…like a conversation you have totally had before with your friend.  It also immediately tells me so much about Scott Pilgrim in that one panel.  That he’s a highly visual person because he uses his hands to describe this girl’s hair instead of explaining it.  That he’s aware what a long shot it is with his “Okay, this might sound vague” but he’s still all optimistic with those giant excited hopeful eyes.  I just love it.  It’s a completely tiny thing in the scope of it all, but it’s what hooked me.  It’s what will have me coming back for more.

All that said, I must admit that I was thrown by the whole superhero-y fighting stuff at the end.  I wasn’t a big fan of it and preferred it as a slice of life book about Scott and his band and friends that it was for the first three quarters plus of the book.  But the series is obviously much beloved and O’Malley certainly knows what he’s doing, so I’ll keep tuning in…mostly because of that one panel of hilarious perfection.