Above: Knives Chau vs. Ramona Flowers, from Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim Volume 2.

Department of Late-To-The-Party: A few weeks ago I read books one through five of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim books, which Laura bought a while ago. Scott Pilgrim fever is gearing up, of course, as the sixth and final book is due out on 20 July, and Edgar Wright’s film version is due out on 13 August.

A good line from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’s screenwriter Michael Bacall: “[Wright] described it once to me as … in a musical when the emotion builds to a point that people can’t express themselves in normal dialogue so they break into song, whereas in the Scott Pilgrim universe they break into fights.”

Anyway, O’Malley’s books are pretty brilliant, Wright’s movie looks like it’s going to be awesome, and, I have to admit, I’m really hoping the movie becomes a hit and restores some respectability to the name Scott. Many of us Scotts never really got over the stigma attached to our names by Seth Green’s Scott Evil from the Austin Powers pictures. (Damn you, Mike Myers, and your perceptive but cruel grasp of how inherently laughable and suburban-white-bread the name Scott sounds. We know!)