Scott Pilgrim is a series of graphic novels written and illustrated by Canadian author and comic book artist Bryan Lee O'Malley. The original edition of the series consists of six digest size black-and-white volumes, released between August 2004 and July 2010, by Portland-based independent comic book publisher Oni Press. It was later republished by Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins."Scott Pilgrim / [Bryan Lee O'Malley]" on Trove. Retrieved September 18, 2011. Full-colour hardback volumes, coloured by Nathan Fairbairn, were released from August 2012 to May 2015.
The series revolves around the titular Scott Pilgrim, a slacker and part-time musician who lives in Toronto and plays bass in a rock band, as he dates a high school student after a traumatic breakup. He simultaneously starts a tentative romance with American delivery girl Ramona Flowers, soon discovering she has seven evil exes. They are manipulated into targeting Scott in combat by her most recent ex-boyfriend, Gideon Graves, forcing both Scott and Ramona to come to terms with their respective pasts, relationships, and behaviors.
The Scott Pilgrim series received widespread acclaim from critics for its artwork, humor, themes, characters, influences, storyline and visual style, and it has garnered a significant cult following. A film adaptation of the series titled Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, directed by Edgar Wright, was released in August 2010. A video game adaptation, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game, developed by Ubisoft for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, was released the same month. An animated series adaptation titled Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was released on Netflix in November 2023, with the cast of the 2010 film reprising their roles, O'Malley writing the script, and Wright serving as an executive producer. A second video game titled Scott Pilgrim EX was released in March 2026.
Publications The main graphic novel series is:
#TitleISBNRelease dateNotes1Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (original) (colour hardcover)August 18, 2004 (original)August 8, 2012 (colour hardcover)2Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (original) (colour hardcover)June 15, 2005 (original)November 7, 2012 (colour hardcover)3Scott Pilgrim & The Infinite Sadness (original) (colour hardcover)May 24, 2006 (original)May 22, 2013 (colour hardcover)4Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together (original) (colour hardcover)November 14, 2007 (original)November 13, 2013 (colour hardcover)The format of the series' spine art is changed (original Oni Press print).5Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe (original) (colour hardcover)February 4, 2009 (original)August 13, 2014 (colour hardcover)The first printing of Volume 5 features a shiny cover.6Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour (original) (colour hardcover)July 20, 2010 (original)May 5, 2015 (colour hardcover)
Other appearances Comics Festival (40-page anthology including a one-page Scott Pilgrim comic; released on Free Comic Book Day 2005) PENG (72-page one-shot comic book by Corey Lewis where Scott Pilgrim appears in one panel; released in 2005) Free Scott Pilgrim No. 1 FCBD 2006 Edition (32-page comic book featuring a 17-page original Scott Pilgrim story; released on Free Comic Book Day 2006) This story is available for free online at the Scott Pilgrim Website Comics Festival 2007! (40-page anthology including a half-page Scott Pilgrim comic and a 4-page Wonderful World of Kim Pine comic; released on Free Comic Book Day 2007) Scott Pilgrim: Full Colour Odds & Ends 2008 (collects Free Scott Pilgrim #1 – newly coloured by Dean Trippe, Wonderful World of Kim Pine four-page story, Now Magazine Best of Toronto two-page strip in black-and-white, the Comics Fest 07 sushi strip, and various watercolours, pin-ups, and advertisements) Scott Pilgrim Print Collection 2004-2024 was released September 24, 2024 and will contained 21 prints by Bryan Lee O'Malley including never-before-seen art.
All of these ancillary stories are available to read on the Scott Pilgrim Website. A collector's box containing all six volumes and a fold-in poster was released in North America on November 3, 2010.
Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life was re-released in colour in August 2012, with the others being released on an irregular schedule, the last in May 2015. In addition to all of the ancillary strips, the hardcover colour editions contain bonus content such as original sketches, creator notes, promotional material, and deleted scenes.
The entire series was re-released in colour again in July 2019 as the Scott Pilgrim Color Collection, collected into 3 larger-format paperback volumes. These three books were released individually and as a box set.
The series was re-released again in both black-and-white and colour in August 2024 for the twentieth anniversary, with the extras from the colour versions being combined into one book: Scott Pilgrim Collected Extras along with other physical items.
Development
Creator Bryan Lee O'Malley was inspired to create the series and eponymous character of Scott Pilgrim after listening to Canadian band Plumtree's 1998 single "Scott Pilgrim", a song then-Plumtree singer Carla Gillis describes as "positive, but ... also bittersweet." In particular, O'Malley was inspired by the lyric, "I've liked you for a thousand years."
O'Malley wanted to write a shōnen-style comic book series, although he had only read one such series at the time, Ranma ½; in the early 2000s, Japanese manga had not yet achieved significant popularity in North America. O'Malley gained inspiration from the book Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga by Koji Aihara and Kentaro Takekuma. In 2002, O'Malley's roommate, who worked in a comic book store, brought the book to him while O'Malley was working on Lost at Sea and was planning Scott Pilgrim. Upon reading the book O'Malley realized that, despite the satirical tone, it could be an effective guide to how the Japanese comic book industry worked.Hudson, Laura. "Bryan Lee O'Malley Talks 'Monkey Manga' with the Men Who Influenced 'Scott Pilgrim' Exclusive ." ComicsAlliance. July 14, 2011. Retrieved on September 6, 2011. O'Malley said that Ranma ½ was the strongest influence and Atsuko Nakajima, the character designer of the Ranma ½ anime and other anime, was an influence to a lesser extent."Questions & answers VI." (Archive) Radiomaru. Retrieved on December 4, 2012. He added that the "exploded page layouts" of Koudelka, a work by Yuji Iwahara, directly influenced the "full-bleed layouts" of Scott Pilgrim. O'Malley said that Osamu Tezuka began influencing his work as he created Volumes 3 and 4. He said, "You can see his influence start to creep in here and there but he's a larger inspirational figure to me than just his drawing style." In regards to the FLCL anime, O'Malley said that while it was an influence, it was "not as much of a direct influence on Scott Pilgrim as people seem to think."
O'Malley used black and white because it was less expensive than creating the series in colour, and so O'Malley said that he "embraced the B&W manga aesthetic"."hey-how-did-you-think-of-the-idea-of-the-whole-scott ." Radiomaru. December 22, 2012. Retrieved on December 23, 2012. When writing the series, O'Malley's first step was developing the direction of the story by creating notes in notebooks, sketchbooks, and computer text files. His second step was to create an outline. His third step was to write a script. His fourth step was to develop thumbnails. His final step was to develop the finished comic book page."people-often-ask-about-my-writing-process-i-was ." Radiomaru. November 1, 2012. Retrieved on December 10, 2012. To ink, O'Malley usually used brushes, including No. 2 and No. 3 brushes. He mostly used computers to build the screentone; he stated that he encountered difficulty finding screentone in North America. O'Malley himself created most of the Scott Pilgrim material. When production on Volume 6 had begun, O'Malley had hired two assistants. The backgrounds in Volume 6 are more detailed than the backgrounds in the previous volumes (O'Malley said that "[m]ost fans don't seem to notice the change").
O'Malley stated that he wanted to create a "hybrid" work that received inspiration from American and Japanese comics, and that he "wanted to reach towards the Japanese comics from my own starting point." When asked if he considers Scott Pilgrim to be a manga, O'Malley responded by saying "Um... No, I think I was just thinking about that today. I guess I was just thinking about the whole OEL thing. I think it's influenced... I like the term 'manga-influenced comics,' but I only like it because no one else likes it."
O'Malley said that he expected Scott Pilgrim to sell around 1,000 copies. He did not expect the series to sell millions of copies and to produce a film adaptation. O'Malley cited the United States comics industry and how it differs from the Japanese comics industry; the United States comic book companies specialize in superhero comics and many newer concepts originate from underground comics. The United States also lacks weekly and monthly comic book magazines and American comic companies generally do not have the system of story editors and assistants that Japanese comic companies have.
O'Malley said that the most difficult portion of Scott Pilgrim to write was the ending. O'Malley deliberately did not consider constructing the ending until he began writing Volume 5. He intended for Volumes 5 and 6 to reflect one single story, with 5 being the "darkest hour" and 6 being the "redemption arc". O'Malley said "there was a lot of stuff to juggle, a lot of plot lines to tie up, and I just had to try and focus on the stuff that mattered most in the time I had." In addition, he wanted to create an ending that would "compete [...] a little" with the ending of the film version; he was aware of "how BIG the finale was". About the ending, O'Malley said, "I think the stuff with the girls and the relationships works pretty well and the stuff with Gideon and the glow is weaker. But hey, some people love it warts and all, and it's not like I'm gonna go back and change it."
To illustrate his reasoning for eventually ending the Scott Pilgrim series, O'Malley used a quote from famed Belgian comics writer and artist Hergé, creator of the Adventures of Tintin comic book series, from 1929 until his death in 1983. Hergé told his wife, "And right now, my work makes me sick. Tintin is no longer me. And I must make a terrible effort to invent [him] ... If Tintin continues to live, it is through a sort of artificial respiration that I must constantly keep up and which is exhausting me." O'Malley said, "If I was still doing Scott Pilgrim in ten years, I would be dead inside."O'Malley, Bryan Lee. "Hergé quote." Radiomaru.com. Retrieved on November 13, 2010. O'Malley said that he did conceive of a continuation centering on Scott and Ramona and involving the other major characters, except for Gideon and the other evil exes of Ramona. He said, "maybe in a few years I'd think about playing with Scott Pilgrim some more""lets-say-that-you-were-to-return-to-the-scott-pilgrim." (Archive) Radiomaru. September 6, 2012. Retrieved on December 4, 2012. and although "there doesn't need to be more Scott Pilgrim", he agreed that "more would be fun".
The cover of the third Japanese Scott Pilgrim volume, which includes content from the original volumes 5 and 6, was based on an illustration from Street Fighter Alpha 2 (Street Fighter Zero 2)."final Japan cover ." Radiomaru (Bryan Lee O'Malley). April 4, 2011. Retrieved on September 6, 2011.
O'Malley used the font Swiss 721 Bold Condensed, which was also used in the film. In later books, the regular weight and italic versions of this font were also used. M04 FATAL FURY is the pixel font used in Book 4 and beyond."ok. Listen up.[...]." (Archive) Radiomaru. Retrieved on December 4, 2012.
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