Scott Pilgrim #1

History

Bryan Lee O'Malley began developing the story in 2002, shortly after a personal breakup, while living in Toronto with a gay roommate whose personality and shared bus-riding conversations became the seed for the character Wallace Wells. The project grew out of O'Malley's desire to write a shōnen-style series — his primary manga reference at the time was Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma ½ — while channeling the Canadian indie-rock scene he loved, including the Plumtree song 'Scott Pilgrim' that gave the protagonist his name. O'Malley had already established a working relationship with Portland-based Oni Press through illustration and lettering work, and his first original OGN Lost at Sea (2003) laid the stylistic groundwork; Oni then pushed him to expand what he originally conceived as a single-volume story with one rival ex into a multi-volume series structured around 'levels and bosses,' which led to the seven-evil-exes framework. The series was formatted as a digest-sized, black-and-white original graphic novel — a format O'Malley deliberately chose both for its affordability of production and to embrace the manga aesthetic — released in August 2004.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Scott Pilgrim, a 23-year-old Toronto slacker and bassist for the band Sex Bob-omb, alongside first appearances of Ramona Flowers, Wallace Wells, Knives Chau, Stephen Stills, Kim Pine, and antagonist Matthew Patel (Ramona's first evil ex).
• Written and drawn entirely by Canadian cartoonist Bryan Lee O'Malley; published by Oni Press in August 2004 as a 168-page, digest-sized (approximately 5" × 7.5"), black-and-white original graphic novel — the shortest volume in the series.
• The volume's title is 'Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life'; its Diamond order code was MAY04 2851 and its ISBN is 978-1-932664-08-9.
• O'Malley began developing the story in 2002, drawing on his own life in Toronto — his gay roommate, his band, and a personal breakup — and named the protagonist after a 1998 Plumtree song he had loved since hearing it on campus radio.
• Oni Press encouraged O'Malley to expand beyond his original single-volume concept; the seven-evil-exes structure was explicitly inspired by Dragon Ball's boss-level format and classic video games such as River City Ransom.
• The first volume earned O'Malley the 2005 Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent and received three Harvey Award nominations (Best New Talent, Best Cartoonist, and Best Graphic Album of Original Work).
• The volume was reprinted multiple times; a full-color hardcover edition (colored by Nathan Fairbairn) was released in August 2012, followed by inclusion in the Scott Pilgrim Color Collection omnibus paperbacks (2019) and a 20th Anniversary hardcover box set (2024).
• The series launched here was later adapted into a 2010 Universal Pictures film directed by Edgar Wright, a Ubisoft beat-'em-up video game, and a 2023 Netflix anime series (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off) written by O'Malley with Science Saru providing animation.

Cast · 1 character

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