“Seconds” is not “Scott Pilgrim” volume 7.
While I hate that I feel somewhat obligated to state this, it seems important to start the review off with this note. For those of you coming to this book based on the massive acclaim and success of “Scott Pilgrim” assuming that you’re going to get more of the same, you’re severely out of luck.
However, if you pick up “Seconds” under the assumption that you’re going to see the evolution of an amazingly talented creator, then you’re in luck — because that’s what “Seconds” very much is.
Starring the young and affable Katie, “Seconds” takes place at the titular restaurant of which Katie owns. Planning to move on with her life to a new establishment while she rearranges various attributes to her life, Katie’s journey begins when she discovers a pad of paper and some mushrooms. With the instructions that she can use these items to re-do certain events in her life by using them, Katie ends up going down an increasingly twisted path in a Twilight Zone-esque parable about learning from your mistakes and dealing with consequences.
What’s surprising about “Seconds” is how quickly it defies expectations. While it obviously strays from previous recurring elements and quirks prevalent to O’Malley’s work, “Seconds” spends its time exploring bigger questions about life and purpose than you may inherently expect. If “Scott Pilgrim” was a book about young love told through the lens of a hyperactive imagination, “Seconds” is more about settling down and coming to grips with the life that you’ve built for yourself. It shows off a different, much more mature side of O’Malley’s writing to be sure, but in the way that you’d expect from someone taking stock of themselves and putting down their thoughts and fears on paper. “Seconds” is a fairly raw book in that fashion, offering up an instant connection between Katie and the audience that relates to the less self-assured aspects to us all; the part of us that lives in fear and doubt as to whether we’ve done the best that we could for ourselves or not.
After all, a popular sci-fi trope is the ability to travel back in time and fix your mistakes. It’s an idea that’s been greatly exploited and explored by many books and films and shows, but not always to the extent to which “Seconds” does. This isn’t just about going back and fixing little things or using time travel for humor (though that’s certainly a part of it), but “Seconds” plays on the idea with a more modern and relatable protagonist — someone whose life is decent, but could be better if only she’d done that one thing a little different; whether that’s answering an e-mail sooner or not saying something stupid in front of your ex. Katie is a new kind of hero, a new kind of protagonist who is very firmly placed within our current culture of Twitter and 24/7 internet connections, and like a slightly more optimistic update to George Bailey, Katie lives a scenario that many of us only daydream through.
In many ways, both obvious and not, “Seconds” is a big step-up for O’Malley. While previous work had a certain reliance on pop-culture and recognizable attributes of certain trend-based ephemera, “Seconds” is a much more contained book. While there are nods here and there, the book instead spends its time developing its own unique worldview and space in which to play. The pacing within the book is used so economically that there is very little time for anything else, and that sense of importance shines through in every page and panel. Given the ability that Katie has, every interaction and every moment comes with a certain sense of importance that at any moment could be destroyed or redone per her whims. It’s with a certain sense of gravity that everything unfolds, and all of it reflects back wonderfully on O’Malley’s strong vision for the story and its tone.
This isn’t to say that aspects of O’Malley’s previously shown abilities and characteristics don’t come through. Certainly not; in fact, there are still nods and easter eggs aplenty within the story, one of which in particular comes somewhat (un)apologetically. “Seconds” is still a very funny book, and one with a self-deprecating lead that manages to poke fun at herself just as much as anything else. O’Malley’s love of life and culture is also on display, as the restaurant atmosphere allows for a certain amount of cooking and food to fill out the pages, and Katie and others in the book take time to display different forms of fashion as parts of their identity, which is certainly something O’Malley has used for the best in past works. But what makes “Seconds” so interesting in this regard is its ability to take universal ideals and then displace them from “our” world, our reality, as everything is more suited for the world in which this story takes place.
Continued belowThat’s perhaps the biggest change of pace here: “Seconds” does not take place in reality as we understand. It’s more of a mirror reflection, something a touch distorted but still familiar. This isn’t the whimsical notions that O’Malley has played with in the past, where the boundaries of believability mix with somewhat surreal and eccentric twists, as “Seconds” is much more defined to itself. Its setting is familiar in the same way that looking at a picture of a foreign country is familiar; you understand inherently that ideas will always remain universal, that there are trees and roads and people, but the culture, the way life is lived and how people go about their day to day business is unique to this region and this location. In that way, “Seconds” is able to truly distinguish itself and expand on O’Malley’s vision for what the world could be like.
What’s interesting about this, though, is the way that “Seconds” finds itself immersed within its own sense of mysticism and heritage. The book has designed itself a certain sense of rules to which everyone in it must abide, but with that comes a rich mythology from which these rules are born. The people in “Seconds” have their own fables, their own tall tales that inform their actions and some of the events that play out in the story, and it’s one of the more remarkable attributes of the book. While these items may seem quaint and unremarkable at first, it slowly builds to a rather compelling bursting point in the latter half of the book, tying into the larger questions O’Malley poses of the cost of maturing and the effects that takes on one’s heart. The book is positively rich with metaphor and parallels, and it allows for O’Malley to pull off some very interesting visual tricks as the book progresses through Katie’s various antics and re-dos.
However, where the book really differentiates itself from O’Malley’s past work is in the art. O’Malley has always had that American mangaka aspect to his artwork, playing with styles traditionally more seen in the work of Japanese artists than those in North America. “Lost at Sea” certainly played at O’Malley discovering his own characters, his own unique vision, while “Scott Pilgrim” seemed to rely more on traditional manga attributes and aesthetics; “Seconds” takes the two elements and blends them together, offering up a much more refined take, something more unique to O’Malley.
A lot of this can also be found in the details of the world that O’Malley has built. O’Malley previously based a lot of his work on real places, landmarks that he could easily mimic and bring to life in the pages of his book. “Seconds” does this decidedly less, offering up blueprint-like qualities of places and buildings imagined from the ground up. O’Malley’s own fascination with architecture and landmarks seems reflected in Katie, where a similar obsession exists — but unlike Katie, O’Malley is able to use the layouts of the comic panels to create an architecture within the pages of the book to a captivating degree.
It’s also prevalent in the characters. The book has itself quite a cast, made up of about ten characters, and all of whom have rather unique definitions within the space of the book. O’Malley definitely has a strong eye towards personality, and this translates incredibly well within the writing and the art; everyone in the book has their own personal ticks, their own quirks that are used to show off who they are and how they live, and O’Malley finds interesting ways to display this.
Take, for example, the following GIF of Hazel, from O’Malley’s tumblr:
Hazel is one of the book’s most important characters, and while she’s given a fully fleshed out identity within the text, a big part of her personality shines through specifically because of the clothes she wears. That GIF cycles through quite a few outfits, but every pose, every hairstyle, every shirt and every combination shows you something different about her, her mood, her identity. This is something O’Malley plays up quite a bit with Hazel in particular, especially in a few key scenes that directly identify this aspect to her. This remains one of the things that O’Malley does remarkably well in his work: defining people not just through the words they say but with the way in which they are presented. Sometimes it is done in the form of the clothes they wear and how it defines their personalities, and other times it’s through recurring facial foibles that bring the characters to life, but it’s always unique, and something not many artists do with such an acute eye for personality.
Continued belowIn fact, it’s that intimate sense of design and consideration that makes O’Malley a standout creator. Seeing him play with a new cast in a smaller space is one of the most fascinating things about “Seconds”; O’Malley has always been great in bringing out the best in his characters, but it’s impressive to see how well these characters are fleshed out by the end of the book, each feeling incredibly human and well loved by their creator.
Last but decidedly not least, the inclusion of Nathan Fairbairn as the colorist of the book brings an additional and wonderful sense of atmosphere to the book. If O’Malley is the lead guitarist of the book, Fairbairn is the ace drummer keeping the rhythm and beat of the book alive and in check; O’Malley’s line art is strong and well-defined, exploratory at times, but it’s Fairbairn that really helps the book pop and stand out. While the book would look good in black and white, the color really adds a wonderful layer of vigor and soul to the story, pulling out character attributes or specific moments and giving them an interesting sense of agency. Fairbairn has an excellent eye towards matching O’Malley’s work, and it allows him to really take book and give it a sense of vitality; from the warmth and inviting tones present on the wooden walls and floorboards of Seconds, to the more bombastic and lively colors used in some of the more ethereal parts of the story. The colors that Fairbairn provides are an indispensable quality to the book, and one that really benefits “Seconds” all the more.
“Seconds” is not “Scott Pilgrim” volume 7, and it’s something much better for it. You could perhaps reason that O’Malley could’ve coasted on his success, but it’s a relief to see that he didn’t. Taking his career in a completely different direction, gone are the days of Zelda references and indie bands, replaced with a new exploration towards mysticism and mythology. And while the characters are still as great as they ever were under O’Malley’s care, through spending so much time meditating on the nature of cause and effect and the ownership of ones mistakes we get to see a bit of a different side to O’Malley. The humor and the sweetness is still there, but “Seconds” is a much more mature and thoughtful read than that which came before it, and should stand as one of O’Malley’s proudest accomplishments.
