Scott Pilgrim vs the World

A trip to a Crouch End charity shop resulted in three amazing finds this weekend. I found a long sought-after Sopranos box set, a book about the making of my favourite Bollywood film Sholay (only published in India), and the first two volumes of Scott Pilgrim's adventures (Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life; Scott Pilgrim vs. the World). Intrigued by this Canada-bred manga promising kick-ass rollerblading ninjas, rock & roll, samurai swords, laughable attempts to seek gainful employment and slackers, I added it to my treasure haul. Crouch End charity shop I salute you.

Scott Pilgrim's story spans six madcap volumes, following his burgeoning romance with the enigmatic, effortlessly cool Ramona Flowers. He's a 24-year-old Canadian, a slacker, hero, wannabe-rock star, living in Toronto and playing bass in the band Sex Bob-Omb. He falls in love with delivery girl Ramona Flowers, but must defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends in order to date her. Switching between slacker concerns such as rent, rock and hedonism and the cartoon violence of having to battle seven evil exes (charmingly presented as a computer game beat-em-up), the book is a hilarious and idiosyncratic take on the manga genre, both zeitgeist-y and charismatic, able to convey thick wads of emotion in simple lines. There is no clunky translation from Japanese here; the jokes come thick and fast, often at Scott's expense and often within the loose perceptions of reality Bryan O'Malley artfully creates in this universe. While told as a tw-eenage slacker romance, characters ease into artificial dreamscapes and subspaces without blinking an eyelid, their fight skills are woven into the plot without detracting from their sympathetic grounding in real-life.

The beauty of Scott Pilgrim is in O'Malley's writing. There is a divisive movement between the comic cartoon superhero and the weighty graphic 'novel'. Be it Wolverine: Origins volume 35 or Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, the artform is alive with versatility. Scott Pilgrim is the antidote to the brooding apocalyptic tone of The Watchmen. It's about human nature, just the lighter side. It's essentially about people and about those of us considered to be in arrested development for following comics, movies, TV shows, and bands as obsessively as we did when we were teenagers. It's about realising that eventually you have to grow up, it's about recapturing the zest and joy of life that made growing up so exciting. In the same way, the outsider in us relates to Peter Parker or to Clark Kent, the nerd in me relates to Scott Pilgrim. In a bizarre world where just about anything can happen, packed with references to comics and computer games, and clues for future instalments, there is always believability. This is helped enormously by the dialogue, which is brilliantly written - genuinely witty and laugh-out-loud funny, while still perfectly reflecting how people actually talk.

Excitingly, the film version is already in production. Helmed by Nerd Lord, Edgar Wright (he of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Spaced fame), it promises to achieve cult status before it's even released. The first volume of Scott Pilgrim is already fetching recession-beating prices on Amazon (once again, Crouch End charity shop, I salute you). Scott Pilgrim will be played by the ultimate slacker man-child in arrested development (no, literally in Arrested Development- he played George Michael, the dim-witted but sweet Bluth grandchild), Michael Cera. So, now the time to read the comic so you can be that annoying friend at pubs and parties when the first trailer is released, snoring on about how you 'read the book, like, months ago'.

Scott Pilgrim and his fight to defeat the seven evil ex-boyfriends is just one in a canon of exciting graphic novels out there at the moment. With more literary authors like Marjane Satrapi and Joe Sacco creating beautifully crafted issue-based novels, and Daniel Clowes full of whimsy and twee menace, and then your Marvels and DCs, and Alan Moore and Frank Miller bridging the gap between literary and cartoon masterfully, there is so much versatility in the graphic novel genre.

In fact, here's a list of ten essential graphic novels for you to try:

> The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller - an existential look at Batman in his old age, forced to return to save Gotham City from itself.

> Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi - set in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, it follows the young Satrapi, six-year-old daughter of two committed and well-to-do Marxists. As she grows up, she witnesses first-hand the effects that the revolution and the war with Iraq have on her home, family and school.

> Ghost World by Daniel Clowes - the adventures of Enid Coleslaw and Beck Doppelmeyer, two bored, supremely ironic teenage girls. They pass the time complaining about the guys they know and fantasising about strange men they see in the local diner.

> The Watchmen by Alan Moore - the story concerns a group called the Minute Men and a plot to kill and discredit them. Moore's characterisation is as sophisticated as any novel's. Importantly the costumes do not get in the way of the storytelling, rather they allow Moore to investigate issues of power and control and the core of human nature as a clock ticks closer to apocalypse.

> Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life by Bryan O'Malley - see above!

> Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware 

> Palestine by Joe Sacco - in late 1991 and early 1992, at the time of the first Intifada, Joe Sacco spent two months with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, travelling and taking notes.

> Maus by Art Spiegelman - the complete story of Vladek Spiegelman and his wife, living and surviving in Hitler's Europe. By addressing the horror of the Holocaust through cartoons, the author captures the everyday reality of fear and is able to explore the guilt, relief and extraordinary sensation of survival.

> Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis - meet Spider Jerusalem, the smart-mouthed, heavily-armed, perpetually smoking gonzo reporter of the future (reminiscent of the counter-revolutionary writer Hunter S. Thompson) as he reacquaints himself with his city's fringe elements.

> An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories by Ivan Brunetti - comic artist Ivan Brunetti, the creator of Schizo, offers a best-of anthology of contemporary art comics, along with some classic comic strips and other historical material that have retained a 'modern' sensibility.