I’m too young to have experienced firsthand the ’70s rock, but when I was in high school, me and my friends were super into Neil Young. That was the grunge era, and he was considered cool again. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
I don’t really picture anyone when I’m drawing. They just become their own completed person with googly eyes. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
I guess I’ve always been kind of obsessed with food. I always liked drawing food, and I always liked stories – I think I probably just read somewhere that stories are better if someone’s eating in them. I don’t know where that came from, but it really stuck, and I always try to put food in. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
I’ve had so many little ideas I’ve written down here and there. Some ideas I’ve got reams of notes for. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
‘Seconds’ is all about spaces, and I guess spaces are kind of like people in that they can be haunting and alluring before we even really get to know them, and after prolonged exposure, they can become mundane or oppressive. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
Writing music is sort of my hobby, but it’s been falling off more and more. Doing comic books takes up my entire life. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
Doubt yourself all you want, but you have to make choices in life and live with them. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
When I was in the middle of the ‘Scott Pilgrim’ series, and it was slowly becoming more popular, though still not financially solvent, I had this real bratty instinct to turn around and do something super arty and dark. I felt dismissed by comics culture, stuck in between the artcomix world and the nerdcomix world, and I was cranky about it. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
The places I’ve been, or passed through, or seen at a distance, have had as much an impact on my life as the people I’ve known. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
There were times over the years when I wanted to take a break from ‘Scott Pilgrim,’ or even just stop doing ‘Scott Pilgrim,’ when I was feeling down or whatever. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
I’ve certainly played games that provoked a real emotional response or serious thought processes. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
I just had this feeling that, if I were to get into a fight, somehow I would have the ability to fight back, just based on playing ‘Street Fighter’ for so many years of my life. It’s almost like I actually learned martial arts. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
‘Seconds’ is very much about reaching out for the next thing after you’ve figured out the first thing. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
I just have this thing in my head that I want to do serious stories that are still just way too cute and drawn in a really cute, appealing, rounded, childish way, and it’s like, I don’t know if it makes sense – but it’s just something I’m really strongly compelled to do. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
For Hollywood to make ‘Spider-Man,’ only to redo the movie a couple years later, just boggles the mind. To recast ‘The Incredible Hulk’ for a third time? I don’t get it. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
I do get the sense sometimes that if I draw things too nice, maybe I won’t be indie-rock enough anymore. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
I lived in London for a long time, and that’s a pretty white town. In Toronto, I just ended up in this circle of indie rock kids who happened to be white, too… Really, it was just when I started getting out there and meeting more people and seeing more fans that I went, ‘Oh, actually, I’m not white.’ – Bryan Lee O’Malley
I really like the look of old ’70s and ’80s Japanese comics, so I think that style is something I will continue to draw. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
After a long period of not drawing, you have to, like, relearn how to draw. It’s not very fun. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
I think it’s natural as you get to the end of your twenties to start thinking about what you could have done differently – whether they went well or whether they went terribly. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
I’m a firm believer in stories with arcs and beginnings and endings and all that. ‘Scott Pilgrim’ is sort of one long novel, and it’s so long that I get confused and sort of tread water sometimes. But there’s definitely a goal to it. People who just dismiss it as shallow, that’s their prerogative, but it’s not really my intent. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
I don’t really have a metaphor for how I write, but it kinda feels like chipping away at a big dark object that I can’t really see. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
Each new book that comes out kind of pulls up the old ones a little bit. The new releases are always going to bolster the old releases. – Bryan Lee O’Malley
