#37 Seconds

Seconds By Bryan Lee O'Malley

I have wanted to pick this up since it came out, i was a massive fan of the Scott Pilgrim series so i was interested to see what Bryan Lee O'Malley came up with next and this certainly did not disappoint. From the first page of the first volume of Scott Pilgrim, the books are a gleefully energetic mash-up of manga, early twenty-something references,

Seconds follows the story of Katie who strikes up an unlikely connection to a house spirit who gives her mushrooms in order to change mistakes and right the wrongs she has made in a similar fashion to that of the butterfly effect. Katie only has a limited supply of mushrooms and is told by the house spirit Les not to neglect the, each change she makes has an astounding effect and although some changes are good there will be one significant change that is not good leaving Katie in a downward spiral of trying to gain the perfect life.

the crushing regret and occasional triumph of growing up, and video games. They are smart and simple in all the right ways, and taken together the six volumes are just about as perfect an argument as you'll find for how to tell stories about life in comic book form.

Ultimately Katie dreams of having her own restaurant, being friends with Hazel and having a good relationship with her boyfriend Max.  

The other characters Les, Max, Andrew and Hazel all play minor roles in the overall story but each mushroom she eats changes her relationship with one of the characters. All the characters are very diverse in both skin colour and body shapes and as a reader and lover of graphic novels this is very unusual and refreshing. 

The artwork is very similar to Scott Pilgrim which i love, its similar to manga as the characters all have big eyes. The only difference is the subject matter is of a more mature nature and it gets quite creepy in sections. The plot progession worked very well and although this is a large graphic novel of just over 300 pages it was never boring and it didnt feel too long either.