Movies based on graphic novels and comic books are all the rage these days. But while “comic book” denotes superheroes with clear-cut heroes and villains, there’s something gritty about the title “graphic novel” that suggests skewed morality, violence and sex. And often these books are filled with just that. Stories like “Kick-Ass,” “300” and “Sin City,” while entertaining, aren’t really suitable for a young audience – in book or movie form. 

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Enter “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,” a stylized – and teen-friendly – conglomeration of rock band, early Nintendo, Samurai swords and the glamour of Indy rock and roll. 

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), 23, lives a meaningless life in Toronto (but don’t hold that against him – it’s Toronto), playing bass in a small-time band and rebound dating a high-schooler after his girlfriend dumped him and became a famous pop musician. His life changes when he falls for American rocker chick Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) at a party. They start dating, but Scott quickly learns that if he wants the relationship to last he’s got to fight for it – against her “League of Evil Exes,” six ex-boyfriends and an ex-girlfriend who will fight to the death to stop Scott Pilgrim’s happiness.  (more…)

Part One:

In 2006, I had a minor low pressure area in my brain and conceived a P.R. campaign directed against Islamo-fascism which I posted on Nate Tabor’s “The Conservative Voice.”  The results were swift and devastating.  Like any other branch of the entertainment industry, liberalism is the default position of most comic book creators and fans.

Liberalism has a long and honorable history in comics, nowhere more apparent than in the groundbreaking Green Lantern/Green Arrow comics by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams which dealt with drug addiction, the trial of the Chicago Seven, corporate pollution and overpopulation. In “Death Be My Destiny,” O’Neil posited a planet called Maltus where over-population was out of control. Denny was channeling the Reverend Thomas Malthus, a nineteenth-century Brit who predicted a Paul Erlich-like doom. In “The Population Bomb” Erlich predicted: “In the 1970s and 1980s . . . hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” (more…)