After Scott Pilgrim, one of the greatest independent comic book series of all time, how does Bryan Lee O'Malley's next book compare?

J.K Rowling had a big problem after Harry Potter, the world was waiting for her to release another amazing book and she gave them a Casual Vacancy, which wasn’t a bad book but it simply couldn’t measure up to the incandescent brilliance of the Harry Potter books.

With Seconds, Bryan Lee O’Malley was in serious danger of falling into the same trap. Scott Pilgrim represented a cultural movement, as for a lot of people around my age it became a style guide for their teenage years. Scott Pilgrim was beloved and so anything else by O’Malley was endanger of being compared to it. However, in Seconds, O’Malley has cleverly created a piece about moving on, Scott Pilgrim might have been for my generation’s teenage years but Seconds is for the next stage of our lives. Adulthood.





The piece follows Katie, the owner of a small and awesome restaurant, as she finds a bag of mushrooms which allow you to grant yourself a ‘second chance’ by undoing mistakes. The general theme of the piece is second chances and change as each second chance puts Katie in a slightly different reality where everything has changed subtly. The writing is really elegant as it communicates a lot of magical rules in a staggeringly short amount of time, leaving a lot of space for hilarious lines of dialog and interactions. Much like Scott Pilgrim, O’Malley creates a vast background cast filled with colourful characters that will easily draw you in. If the writing has a weakness it might be the final pay off as it struggles to feel satisfying, on reflection I’m not sure how else it could have been approached but still it left me wanting more.

The artwork and layout is ground breaking as each page grabs your attention and pulls you into the emotional heart of the panel. My favourite panel is the one above which introduces the kitchens of the restaurant but there are a lot of other breath-taking visual moments. There are a few panels that feel a little too busy for the simplistic style of the O’Malley’s art but it never took me out of the piece. The art combined with the effective writing Seconds makes for a very compelling piece that I recommend to anyone with an interest in comic books, especially if you were a fan of the Scott Pilgrim series.

You can pick Seconds up on Amazon for around £12 which is a little cheaper than average for a graphic novel of this size.







