Announcing the Scott Pilgrim/Mighty Fine Contest Winners!

Last week I held my very first contest on All About Manga and 17 people responded with their favorite scenes from Scott Pilgrim! (Although, one person was technically disqualified for posting after the contest ended. Sorry, Jessica!)

Everyone’s enthusiasm for the series resulted in a ton of entries that turned into miniature essays about their love for Bryan Lee O’Malley’s incredible graphic novels. In fact, there was so much enthusiasm, my blog now gets multiple hits from the search term “I’ll be your dipping sauce bitch” every day. BEST SEARCH TERM EVER.

Here are my top three, the winners, in no particular order because you’re all getting the same prize. (A t-shirt from Mighty Fine.)

From Yan, whose favorite scene was Scott Pilgrim’s disappointment at winning a souped-up skateboard after his fight with Lucas Lee:

It’s a darn shame that Scott both: (a) sucks at skateboarding due to “not having allocated points into that skill when younger”, and (b) has the skateboard simply phase out of reality. Afterward, Scott proclaims the events that transpired to include the “worst fight ever”.
Now, while I find the actual meeting and subsequent battle between Scott and Lucas to have been hilariously fun to read, the particular scene mentioned above has undoubtedly become my overall favorite. It parallels 2 events, one real-world, one cyber, that most people who have had the pleasure of reading the Scott Pilgrim series would easily relate to. Holidays as a child: Many of us have grown up receiving gifts from family and friends that, oftentimes, was the opposite of what we had hoped to get. Thereafter, deeming the holiday itself a “failure”, not even considering the concept behind it as being more important. The second? RPGs of the variety where people “farm” for better equipment, among many different classes. Surely you’ve played an MMORPG where, upon killing a difficult boss, they drop a really great, rare item… which you can’t even equip because you’re the wrong class type or you allocated points incorrectly! GAAAAAAAH!!! Are you as frustrated as Scott? I know I was.

Choose your hobbies wisely, my friends.

From Max, whose favorite scene was Scott Pilgrim and Todd Ingram’s fight at Honest Ed’s:

Being a consumer is such a scary responsibility; it’s no wonder it gives the childlike Scott and Todd such a migraine. In Honest Ed’s, EVERYTHING is available to them, since they live in a videogame and no one pays for vacuum cleaners in a videogame. Yet the other shoppers, who live in reality, seem totally unaffected by their environment. These are the adults; they’ve accepted their role in society, and can fulfill their responsibilities without throwing hissy-fits. It’s very possible that when Scott thinks he’s “going blind” he is actually going through an important epiphany, but his body is physically rejecting it. (In the end, he learns nothing anyway.) It’s equally significant that in this scene, Todd has a vision reminding him of his responsibilities, and of the immature decisions he has made.

Even though things are free in videogame land, the IMPORTANT things are not free (i.e. True Love, which must be fought for) and weapons made from consumer products are utterly ineffective. Since fighting is equated with Love in Scott Pilgrim, it might not be such a stretch to call the Honest Ed’s battle a commentary on the emptiness of Things; “Money can’t buy me love.” Which, you know, isn’t really that big a statement, but the fact that it (might be) there at all is more than enough.

Wow, that was actually quite deep! Bravo Max!

From Ted, whose favorite scene is Scott’s fight between him and the Katayanagi twins where Kim Pine encourages Scott to win through fake texts from Ramona:

It marks such a maturation point for Scott and the series. The twins kidnap Kim and mock her for standing by Scott and she becomes essential to his beating them while essentially misleading them. Kim has to standby Scott and decide that his love for Ramona is more important than whatever crap has been in all of their pasts.We also don’t necessarily know what’s going to happen between Ramona and Scott, but we want to believe Kim just as much as Scott does even as we start to realize that this volume might not have a happy ending! O’Malley foreshadows it really well with Ramona and Kim’s asides earlier on (like the camera phone scene outside the party).

The whole scene is such a dynamite moment for O’Malley as a storyteller to load what ends up being Scott’s penultimate victory with this ironic uncertainty. I’ve heard a lot of people call Book 5 the darkest in the series and this moment definitely qualifies it, but it also re-emphasizes the characters at the heart of the story and the lengths they go for each other.

Very true! This is also one of my favorite scenes for the strength it inspires in Scott, although it only serves to bring him down more when Ramona leaves.

Thank you to everyone for participating and Mighty Fine for the awesome tees! I’ll be contacting the winners shortly to get their information so we can send them awesome Scott Pilgrim tees!

I hope every one gets a chance to see the movie next week!

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4 Responses to Announcing the Scott Pilgrim/Mighty Fine Contest Winners!

  1. Yan says:

    Wow! Thank you for choosing my entry, Daniella! I’ll be sure to wear Scott Pilgrim loud and proud, even if the day comes where my head begins to glow.

    I made sure to follow the post as all the entries were pouring in and, simply based off the amount of SP love, everyone deserves a t-shirt of their own. Even though the contest is over, people should still go out and:

    a) see the upcoming movie (in theaters this Friday),
    b) purchase the upcoming PSN/Live game ($10 – comes out tomorrow on PSN, August 25th for Live),
    c) buy any and all other memorabilia that makes you happy.

    “I’ll be your dipping sauce bitch” = The tag that makes me laugh and hungry all at the same time.

    • My pleasure! Your entry showed a lot of deep thought in choosing your favorite scene. I will e-mail you shortly to get your address so Mighty Fine can send you one of their shirts.

      “I’ll be your dipping sauce bitch” has to be one of the best lines from Scott Pilgrim ever. I can only hope it’ll be in the movie, although I’d understand if it was cut.

  2. Apple says:

    Did you see that Deb Aoki posted a picture of the actual Honest Ed’s?

    http://manga.about.com/od/imagegalleries/ig/Scott-Pilgrim-6-Party-Gallery/SPilgrim6—Honest-Ed-s.htm

    I had totally thought it was made up. XD

    • Yes, I did! I knew most of the Toronto settings in Scott Pilgrim were real. O’Malley talks about a bit in the books and in a lot of the behind the scenes stuff for the movie. Still, it’s kind of cool to see the real t hing.

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