I went ahead and added both FREE SCOTT PILGRIM (2006) and my material from COMICS FESTIVAL (2007) to the scottpilgrim.com Previews page.

Now everything is all in one place. Phew.

COMIC FOUNDRY (a new magazine) interviewed me for their first issue, and this is one of the Vol 4 clips I gave them for the layout. From page... 24... or something like that? It's from the first chapter in the book. Chapter 19.

I guess my whining last night paid off (in a karmic sense) because apparently I won a Harvey Award - Special Award for Humor in Comics.

The Harveys were presented in Baltimore last night. (Reported at the Beat and Spurgeon so I assume it's true - the Harveys site hasn't been updated yet.)

Sorry about the whining, thanks for all the good will, and thanks to anyone who voted for me. (The Harveys are the ones where Industry Folks get to vote.) I believe I voted for Michael Kupperman in that category, who is about ten million times funnier than I could ever hope to be.

One of the things I remember clearly from when I was 19 is trying to justify this cover, weakly, to my then-girlfriend:



So, thank you, Joe Madureira, for showing me how NOT to attract a female readership...

Also, I'm glad I haven't grown up to be a 28-year-old who is still trying to justify shit like that to his girlfriend, if he has one. Poor guy.

--

I'm trying to get this book done. How's it going? It's going.

TCAF is this weekend, August 18-19, in Toronto.

It's at Victoria College, right beside Museum Station (across from the Royal Ontario Museum).

It's FREE! to get in!

About a million fabulous cartoonists will be there exhibiting and signing and sketching and selling their fabulous stuff!

It's in scenic downtown Toronto, on the beautiful University of Toronto Campus, as seen in Scott Pilgrim Vol 3, which is nominated for a Doug Wright Award, to be given out Friday Night!

It's right down the street from Yonge where you can get good cheap Thai food and whatnot. (The Amazing Toronto Reference library, as seen in Scott Pilgrim Vol 2, is also just a few short blocks away.)

I'm on the second floor, beside Wright-nominated HOPE LARSON and Wright-nominated REBECCA KRAATZ. I will have:

• All my books for sale! $12 each! 60 copies each! How long will they last?
  
• THE ANNOTATED PILGRIM! $3 each, or free with a purchase of any two $12 books (or a piece of expensive artwork)! I printed 200 of them! First-come, first-serve, if it comes to that!
  
• Expensive artwork! Some of which will be cheap! I am reducing prices soon/now!
  
• Free, beautiful, full-colour, double-sided postcards, featuring Secret Pixel Art on the back, which has (somehow) not yet made its Internet Debut! I am good at keeping this secret!

I will do signatures and sketches in your books for free! If you have all three Scott Pilgrims for me to sign, I usually do a sketch in one of them and just sign the other two. If you also have Lost at Sea, I usually do a little sketch in there too. Two book-sketches per person if they have all four books, dig?

I usually do small sketches for free, if you provide paper or a sketchbook. My wrist is troubling me lately. Please don't ask too much of me. I will beg you with my sad, sad eyes.

On Saturday night I'm playing some songs on my guitar, at Sneaky Dee's, followed by some real bands. Exciting! This event costs $5. Explore the fascinatingly weird coincidence of me playing a show at a bar that is a prominent location in Scott Pilgrim Vol 4, and is depicted in the secret pixel art on the back of my free postcard.

Very long post! That is all for now!

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I am involved in two panels - something about MANGA at 1 PM on Saturday, and something about GAYS IN COMICS at 4 or 5 pm also on Saturday. Note: I am not gay, but have been roped in as the Token Straight Guy (who writes a well-known gay character) for this panel. Other note: I would have more information, but the TCAF website is down right now, and so is my website, but hopefully everything will be back soon.

Ms. Larson had a fine strip in the New York Times today. There are four pages - you have to click through.

I think you must agree that she is brilliant, talented, etc.

This should be appearing in PREVIEWS (the comic retail catalogue) this week, as an advance solicit for September.

I also made a desktop wallpaper version for your computer (click on it):

Here are some photos.

Here is a transcript of my "spotlight" panel (thanks Doug and Kiel and everyone who came). Note: it was not really depressing - it was supposed to be funny.

Food diary:

Day 1, Thursday, Lunch: After 12 hours of travel it was only 11 AM, so we went to Sears Fine Food on Powell street in San Francisco. I ate 18 tiny pancakes with bacon and coffee. I feel okay about that.

Day 1, Thursday, Dinner: a veggie burrito at a Del Taco on Market St. I, uh, yeah. I don't know. I was wandering around by myself (Hope was visiting with a friend) and I was tired and not that hungry, and it's hard to get "good" Mexican food where we live. This was remedied the next day, thankfully.

Day 2, Friday, Lunch: a very nice savoury crepe with potatoes and salad. Crepevine, in the Castro, on Church street I think. Jen Wang lives nearby and we ate with her, Vera Brosgol and Dylan Meconis.


Day 2, Friday, After Lunch: I got some home-made ice cream from a nearby place. Cookies and cream. It was good.

Day 2, Friday, Late Afternoon: A dessert crepe this time, from Sophie's Crepes in Japantown Center. I used to always want one, but was poor. This time I could afford it! I got a crepe with Nutella and kiwi, and a ton of whipped cream. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Day 2, Friday, Dinner: After our signing, Graeme McMillan's lovely wife (Kate?) recommended an area with lots of taquerias, and we went there and had a wonderfully bloated time. My dinner plate took twenty minutes longer than anyone else's food and was about four times the size. I was very pleased.

Day 3, Saturday, Lunch: Graeme McMillan and his lovely wife offered to get us burgers, onion rings and garlic fries from a certain heavenly place they knew nearby. I had a seared tuna sandwich that was one of the greatest things I've ever eaten. I'm sure I reeked of garlic the rest of the day and I'm sure I didn't care.

Day 3, Saturday, Dinner: Hope and I went back to Japantown with James and Randy from Oni Press and ate the most amazing sushi I've ever had. As I said in my panel the next day, I truly realize that I've never had "good" sushi until this dinner. What I had in particular was a salmon skin roll, a toro & green onion roll (toromachi?), and an eel/avocado roll - this one was kind of fancy and had a special name (edit: caterpillar roll). For round two I got some toro nigiri (this was to die for) and also split some spicy tuna roll with James, which was also to die for.


Day 4, Sunday, Daytime: There wasn't really a meal. I bought snacks in the morning because I was worried about that, so I spent the day eating Combos and Pepperidge Farms cookies. Thankfully our friend Jenne also brought some excellent pastries from the bakery where she works, in the north bay.

Day 4, Sunday, Dinner: We capped off the trip in style with a trip up to the aforementioned north bay with the aforementioned Jenne and her mate George, and we had a totally sweet Italian meal where we were all trying each other's stuff, downing a carafe of local wine, and sharing three desserts. Hope had gnocchi that were like little puffs of air. I had this rolled chicken-mozzarella-prosciutto thing that was ridiculously great.

C. Butcher gave me a copy of the COMICS FESTIVAL free comic book the other day in Toronto.





It includes a 4-page, full-colour KIM PINE comic strip by me! Also a ton of stuff by a ton of great cartoonists including Hope Larson, Darwyn Cooke, Ryan North, and other dudes.

Free Comic Book Day is May 5th.

I have no idea how you can get this book unless your local comic book store ordered them and wants to give you one for free. That's the only way I know of. Sorry.

I think Volume 3 is the only one with unused art, really.

--


Unused page which constitutes an entire unused flashback scene. Was replaced with this page in the book. A bunch of pages were rearranged or deleted in this section.

Reasons for deleting this page:

• dumb
• boring
• unnecessary

Was the replacement page any better?

• Not really

--


Unused 2-page spread. Reason: I thought I could use the space better. It was featured in a preview on a comics news site, sort of against my will. As such, it will be on the internet forever. I am uploading it here anyway, for posterity.

The version posted on the comics news site possibly contained errors or was truncated in some way. That whole preview had a bunch of stuff that I later changed or deleted.

--


Evidence that I have no idea what I'm doing.

At least I do like the final version better than the others, though. I fixed up a lot of the early Envy stuff later in the book (redrawing panels and rewriting some dialogue), when I had a better handle on the character. I think it helped.

An early version of the Scott Pilgrim V3 cover, scrapped. It went around the internet fifty times before I scrapped it, of course. I still see it all over the place to this day. The internet is a horrible place.

Who's going to APE next week, in San Francisco?

I am!

I've never been.

(To APE. I've been to San Francisco, although not since... 2001?)

I am involved with two panels on Sunday (the 22nd of April): "Graphic Novels Now" at 12:30, and a "spotlight" on "me" at 3:45. (that seems like it's pretty late.) Hope has a spotlight panel at 2:45 the same day.

For my spotlight thing, I'll have Douglas Sherwood on stage to help me chat about stuff (he's that hot young editor at Oni Press), and I'm going to try to put together a short preview / reading from the new book. Probably the same stuff I did in North York in February, plus more. And a Q&A session. Are those ever any good?

Are any of my friends going? Or... or any of my... fans?

--

While in San Francisco we also have a signing at Comix Experience:



Friday, April 20th
5-7 PM
305 Divisadero St
415-863-9258

Kevin Huizenga, Gene Yang, Hope Larson and myself.

--

In other news, today I baked bread, from scratch, for the first time in my life. It was very exciting. So exciting that I forgot to take a picture before eating approximately 2/3rds of the loaf. *sigh* It was from my new favourite book, Baking Illustrated.

2003:


2004:


2005:


still 2005:


I've been working on the same surface since 2004, a cruddy table I took from my parents' basement.

1. Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (Vol 1) cover. Drawn before the interior art for the book, so it's the earliest "canon" drawing, really. February 2004, I think.
   
   
2. Detail from a panel from Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World (Vol 2), coloured for promotional buttons. Late 2004 / early 2005.
   
   
3. Drawn after Vol 2, for promotional purposes (website). May 2005, probably.
   
   
4. Drawn shortly before starting on Vol 3, for promotional purposes (a poster). May or June 2005.
   
   
5. Detail from Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness (Vol 3), coloured for promotional buttons. March 2006, I think.
   
   
6. Drawn after finishing Vol 3, for promotional purposes (release party, with Dinosaur Comics). May 2006.
   
   
7. Drawn after finishing Vol 3, for promotional purposes (for display). Oops, this was drawn before the dinosaur one: April 2006.
   
   
8. Detail from Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together (Vol 4), coloured for a forthcoming promotional postcard. March 2007.

Creepy, isn't it?

I really like the way he looks right now (the 8th picture was drawn just last week).

I've obviously been a horribly inconsistent artist, but maybe the character design is... is... kinda malleable? I dunno!

1. The Second Cup is a coffee chain (very much a Canadian version of Starbucks). When I was doing Scott Pilgrim Vol 2, the one near my house closed for renovations right when I needed to take reference photos and draw it for a few scenes in the book. Since I was lazy and poor, I just did a really simplified version from memory. This time, I had the luxury of sitting at an actual Second Cup and sketching the details of the counter on the back of my receipt, resulting in this lavishly illustrated panel!

2. This is totally made up, based loosely on my vague memory of "Fresh" on Queen Street in Toronto. It's a fictional location, though, so that's okay.

I'm drawing on bigger paper for this book, so... I don't know. I'm very slow? These panels are probably going to be smaller than you'd think.

This is one of two covers for COMICS FESTIVAL 2007, a Free Comic Book Day comic book. I think the other cover will be by Darwyn Cooke. Look for it on Free Comic Book Day, Saturday May 5th (I think it's the day after the new Spider-Man movie comes out or some such). It will have some other miscellaneous comics by me inside, and a bunch of other short stories and strips by exciting creators such as Hope Larson and Chip Zdarsky.

ADDED NOTE: There are a LOT of free comics for stores to choose from this year, so if you want to get this, please check with your local comic store as soon as possible to make sure they're ordering some.

Chris is very busy today, so this has been a public service announcement on his behalf.

Also, I'm planning to do promo postcards featuring this image (without all the text). Look for those at APE and MoCCA, probably.

I'm going out of town for a week, so try and make sure nothing important happens while I'm gone.

I leave you with a little taste of Scott Pilgrim Vol 4. You'll have to imagine that it's summertime, and really warm, as you're reading this page.

1. Make the panels really small and the space between the panels as large as possible.

2. Make the word balloons really big.

3. Backgrounds? No. No backgrounds. (Fill that space with word balloons instead?)

Wizard did a spread on Scott Pilgrim as their "Indie of the Year". Woooooo! I used to read Wizard when I was about 14. I had a year or two worth of them back in the mid-90s. In fact, I know Wizard was the first place I ever saw stuff like Chris Ware, and some of my earliest information about manga came from there too. So, that's nice. I mean, mainly it was Joe Madureira and hilarious captions and photos of action figures, etc. I'm curious to see what kind of sophomoric nonsense they spewed about Scott P., so does anyone have a copy of the issue (#183) that they could scan for me?

CONTENT! Here is a little Salamander Dream comic I did last year (in my sketchbook). Click to bigg up.


Scott 4 update: I feel okay about the drawings currently. Drawing these things is like a huge existential dilemma. I cannot explain the rollercoaster of emotions that one goes through while drawing an extremely long graphic novel. This book will be very long, at least a dozen pages longer than book 2, and possibly another dozen longer than that. I'm trying to trim it a bit as I draw, but the script was definitely quite long. I don't want to turn into Harry Potter over here; I'm going to try to keep each book around the 200-page mark. I'm making a conservative estimate that the book will come out next summer. (I wonder if the last Harry Potter will come out next summer?!?!?)

I forgot about this and just found it on my computer. An early version of what became the FREE SCOTT PILGRIM story was originally going to be a minicomic called SCOTT PILGRIM 2.5, and this is the only thing I ever finished of it (the cover).