As the beloved comic series Scott Pilgrim turn 20 years old, Oni Press has collaborated with series creator Bryan Lee O’Malley, as well as Eisner-winning artist Patrick Crotty, to create a new box set of the series. You can find The Beat’s review for it here. The Beat reached out to O’Malley with some questions, which you can read below.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
JARED BIRD: Thank you so much for your time. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Scott Pilgrim series, Oni Press is releasing a brand new box set containing the whole series in hardcover format with tons of awesome extras. What’s it been like, celebrating 20 years of Scott Pilgrim?
BRIAN LEE O’MALLEY: It’s been a lot more work than I thought. I didn’t really think about it that way, but personally, I have been working all year on it. It’s been really rewarding. I knew that I should try to do something for it, so last year when we wrapped up working on the show (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off!) in November, I started working on it and I’ve been working on the 20th Anniversary stuff ever since. The first few months were mainly working on the box set, which had some stuff that had to be done really early in order to be manufactured in time. We’ve had so many little things to put together, and it’s been really fun.
BIRD: Did you expect Scott Pilgrim to still be popular after two decades?
O’MALLEY: No, of course not! I couldn’t have anticipated it would be popular at all. I thought it would remain in a small circle, but it grew and grew. Especially with Edgar Wright’s film (Scott Pilgrim vs The World) and the way that spread around the world. I am constantly floored by it. It just got everywhere, like a raging virus out of control.
BIRD: Some sort of Lovecraftian monstrosity expanding endlessly.
O’MALLEY: Honestly, yeah! I think I had a nightmare like that once.
BIRD: What was your favorite thing to put into the box set?
O’MALLEY: It was so fun to put together. I really liked putting the seventh volume together, which is filled with back matter from the other books and other extras. Putting it together into one whole thing was more interesting than I expected. I also really like the silly little card that gives instructions on how to read a book. That was mostly Patrick Crotty’s idea, as he did the design of the boxset and did an incredible job.
BIRD: I wanted to ask if you could shed some light on your continuing relationship with Oni Press, and how they’ve been to you as your publisher for the last twenty or so years.
O’MALLEY: It’s kind of funny because they really changed a couple of years ago, there was a total corporate citation that I didn’t really follow. Basically, it’s like a whole new publisher right now. I’m still getting my footing, but so far so good. I haven’t had any complaints, I guess! We’re still working together.
BIRD: With the recent show, lots of newer fans are coming to the series for the first time. What do you want them to take away from it?
O’MALLEY: I think there’s a tendency now to reduce everything to the simplest possible explanation of it. One sentence, one tweet. Stuff like Scott Pilgrim is irreducible in a way. If you read it and really absorb the intricacies and the complexities of it, you really get something more out of it than you do from reading a synopsis of it. It’s more than the sum of its parts, I hope.
BIRD: That’s a great way of summarizing it. When I first read Scott Pilgrim, I had seen the movie but something that drew me to the comic was how much more it elaborated on the character’s backstories, and what they’re doing while Scott is having these adventures. An entire subplot about Scott’s ex-girlfriend. It blew my mind, and I loved that it was so fleshed out.
O’MALLEY: I love that. That’s what I love about doing these things, exploring larger networks of people and what makes them all tick.
BIRD: If you had to recommend one of your other works to fans of Scott Pilgrim, what would it be?
O’MALLEY: The natural one is Seconds. It’s the book I did right after finishing Scott Pilgrim wrapped up, ten years ago now. It mostly depends on your age. I did another comic called Snotgirl, which is a very different thing I do in collaboration with Leslie Hung, the artist. I don’t have that much other work. I’m working on the next thing, which will eventually be the thing I will tell fans of Scott Pilgrim to read.
BIRD: That’s exciting to hear! What do you think causes people to come back to Scott Pilgrim, even after all this time?
O’MALLEY: I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to say. It’s kind of generational at this point, which is fun. I hear from so many young fans now, which is of course not what I expected years ago. I wouldn’t have expected people who weren’t even born yet to love Scott Pilgrim, and they do, which is unreal. As for coming back, I hope it’s more than just nostalgia. Hopefully, it’s part of the fabric of people’s lives in a way. I know it’s very important to people, which is why I wanted to honor that with the 20th Anniversary editions.
BIRD: Fair enough. To set aside any worries, I was alive when the series started.
O’MALLEY: Haha! You do look suspiciously young.
BIRD: If you had to give advice to yourself, back when you started out with Lost At Sea, what would you say?
O’MALLEY: It’s the same sort of thing that I would’ve said while doing Seconds, which is to not redo my own mistakes. If I said anything to my younger self, it would disrupt the flow of time! Not knowing was such a superpower, I think. I was able to keep my head down and keep doing it. If I had known this would be popular, I probably never would’ve done it, because I would’ve been scared of the reaction. I’ve seen all sorts of reactions, people take it any kind of way. That wasn’t my intention. Like I said, if it was a small group of my friends who found it funny or whatever, that would’ve been enough for me. If I had to tell my younger self something, it would just be to buckle in and take the ride wherever it goes.
BIRD: Have a lovely day.
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