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Week Two

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In Chapter 2 of McCloud's Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud mentions live action movies and how movie critics “acknowledge the striped down intensity of a simple story or visual style.” (McCloud, 31) The only thing I could think about was the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and how it is a live action movie, based off Bryan Lee O'Malley's black and white video game-inspired comic book. The movie, which came out in 2010 and was directed by Edgar Wright, contains a lot of similarities to its comic book counterpart, including the action notes which is featured in the panel. When looking at the drawn comic book characters and the real life actors that were picked to play them, it almost seems as if Bryan Lee O’Malley had certain people in mind. Bryan Lee O'Malley developed Scott Pilgrim in the early 2000’s and ended up publishing six volumes all together. The original series was initially released in black and white but has since been rereleased in a color edition, as someone who first read the series in black and white, I think seeing it in color takes away from the aesthetic O’Malley was originally going for. While Scott Pilgrim is not a manga, it does contain some of the stylings that McCloud mentions when he talks about masking and photorealism. When you consider the comic art in Scott Pilgrim, it would fall just where McCloud writes that most comic art does, “near the bottom—that is along the iconic abstraction side” (McCloud, 51)
The events that occur in the Scott Pilgrim comic book and the movie are close enough to reality that they could possibly happen, but also outlandish enough that they are ridiculous. According to McCloud this is what comics are all about, they are visual storytelling and being able to help readers either relate to certain things or escape into a different world. With the original series being published in black and white, I think it lends a level of intensity and reader imagination as well, and this is what can transport you into the story.
https://fs447a2016.wordpress.com/2016/03/04/scot-pilgrim-vs-the-world-editing-masterpiece/

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