THE STORY OF SCOTT PILGRIM HAS always existed in a strange little pocket of time, one that seems perpetually on the brink of techno-modernity, and this continues to be true in its latest incarnation. In the new anime series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, the world has spun on and the cultural references have been updated, but computers are still loud, blocky, charming things. Grimy music venues and video-rental spaces remain present in Scott’s Toronto, though you do feel a greater sense of their precarity. The future is encroaching, but he doesn’t care. After all, he’s still dating a high-schooler when he meets the girl of his dreams.
Published by Oni Press across the aughts, the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels bottled a vibrant feeling of being young and wayward in that cuspy Gen-X era. Written and illustrated by Bryan Lee O’Malley (with later rereleases inked by colorist Nathan Fairbairn), the books followed the journey of a sweet but self-centered 20-something dirtbag who falls in love with the effortlessly cool Ramona Flowers and ends up having to fight her seven evil exes. Along the way, he learns to see beyond himself or at least in that general direction. The stickiness of Scott Pilgrim has a lot to do with how the series captures the mess of being in your 20s, but its je ne sais quoi lies in the texture of its setting, a mundane Toronto that’s cut with literalizations of video-game and manga references. Despite possessing the lanky frame of an indie bassist, Scott happens to be a great fighter who’s constantly getting into scuffles straight out of Dragon Ball. Defeated antagonists explode into a mist of video-game coins. Ramona is a Rollerblading courier who uses Scott’s subconscious as an extradimensional superhighway to shorten delivery times.
Esta historia es de la edición November 20 - December 03, 2023 de New York magazine.
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Esta historia es de la edición November 20 - December 03, 2023 de New York magazine.
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THE BEST ART SHOWS OF THE YEAR
IN NOVEMBER, Sotheby's made history when it sold for a million bucks a painting made by artificial intelligence. Ai-Da, \"the first humanoid robot artist to have an artwork auctioned by a major auction house,\" created a portrait of Alan Turing that resembles nothing more than a bad Francis Bacon rip-off. Still, the auction house described the sale as \"a new frontier in the global art market.\"
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A STRANGE THING happened with podcasts in 2024: The industry was repeatedly thrust into the spotlight owing to a preponderance of head-turning events and a presidential-election cycle that radically foregrounded the medium's consequential nature. To reflect this, we've carved out a list of ten big moments from the year as refracted through podcasting.
THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - BEST BOOKS
THE BEST THEATER OF THE YEAR
IT'S BEEN a year of successful straight plays, even measured by a metric at which they usually do poorly: ticket sales. Partially that's owed to Hollywood stars: Jeremy Strong, Jim Parsons, Rachel Zegler, Rachel McAdams (to my mind, the most compelling).
THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
2024 WAS one big stress test that presented artists with a choice: Face uncomfortable realities or serve distractions to the audience. Pop music turned inward while hip-hop weathered court cases and incalculable losses. Country struggled to reconcile conservative interests with a much wider base of artists. But the year's best music offered a reprieve.
THE BEST TELEVISION OF THE YEAR
IT WAS SURPRISING how much 2024 felt like an uneventful wake for the Peak TV era. There was still great television, but there was much more mid or meh television and far fewer moments when a critical mass of viewers seemed equally excited about the same series.
THE BEST COMEDY SPECIALS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - COMEDY SPECIALS
THE BEST MOVIES OF THE YEAR
PEOPLE LOVED Megalopolis, hated it, puzzled over it, clipped it into memes, and tried to astroturf it into a camp classic, but, most important, they cared about it even though it featured none of the qualities you'd expect of a breakthrough work in these noisy times.
A Truly Great Time
This was the year our city's new restaurants loosened up.
The Art of the Well-Stuffed Stocking
THE CHRISTMAS ENTHUSIASTS on the Strategist team gathered to discuss the oversize socks they drape on their couches and what they put inside them.
