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Pilgrims progress

Bryan Lee O’Malley lived in Toronto for only three years, but that was long enough to leave a mark. During those years, he locked in the “starting positions” for his Scott Pilgrim comic book series, which is currently being adapted for film as Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.

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“I lived with a gay roommate, I was in a band and I was dating an American girl,” he says, listing the parallels between his life and his comic books.

From North Carolina, he adds that he doesn’t have a particularly exciting romantic history, but its ups and downs did end up as fodder for his hero’s battles to defeat the seven evil ex-boyfriends standing between him and his love.

As for sub-space travel, vegan-derived superpowers, energy shields and character levelling – those come from the imagination department, with heavy influences from role-playing video games and manga.

“I tried to draw like Jeff Smith, Paul Pope and Jamie Hewlett for a while, then got obsessed with 70s manga and Osamu Tezuka,” says O’Malley. “I guess I’m still working on that.”

Toronto figures prominently in the comics: key events occur at the Reference Library, Honest Ed’s and Dufferin Mall. It’s no surprise, then, that the film adaptation of Scott Pilgrim is being shot here – with Toronto playing Toronto, not Raccoon City or New York.

“Pizza Pizza is in there, Second Cup, Lee’s Palace – people will know it’s Toronto,” says London, UK-based director Edgar Wright. “Other cities offer tax breaks, but spiritually it had to be here.”

That’s not to say the film will be a verbatim transcription of six comic books.

“Scott Pilgrim won’t be like Watchmen, the comic as a visual storyboard,” says Wright, who says many exciting comic book films, like Danger Diabolik, weren’t direct interpretations but had a comic book feel. He adds that some films without comic book origins, like RoboCop and The Matrix, can also convey a comic book feel.

Best known for directing Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz, Wright has also written drafts for Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Tintin and is directing Ant-Man (scheduled for 2010 release).

He says his time in Toronto has enhanced his reading of the Pilgrim series.

“Hanging out here, you see how Canadian sensibilities filter into the comics in terms of the cadence of the dialogue and, dare I say, the laid-backness of people,” he says, making sure to add that he likes that easygoing attitude.

You can tell that fidelity to the Pilgrim series is a priority for Wright. Having been shut out of a remake of his own TV series, Spaced, he’s made sure to consult O’Malley along the way on things like costumes, music and casting.

“I feel respected and valued,” O’Malley says, “which apparently is not supposed to be the way you feel in these things.”

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