Mission Loc@l’s resident artist Rio Yañez speaks to Mission Comics and Art store owner Leef Smith about comic book stores, and of course the much-anticipated release of Scott Pilgrim. If you don’t know Scott Pilgrim, here’s a breakdown: he’s 23 years old and lives in a big city with his gay roommate. He’s in a band. He’s lazy. Sound like anyone you know? Rio also gave us his take on Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley:
“So, as a Chicano artist, I’ve always appreciated the work of Bryan Lee O’Malley, who doesn’t really get recognized as an Asian-Canadian artist. I appreciate the kind of hybrid approach he takes to creating a mainstream work of art while also including a lot of cultural references that are very specific to the Asian-Canadian, and Asian-American experience. And of course there’s also quite a variety of references to Mexican culture in his series. There’s actually a Day of the Dead party in Volume 5, which I kind of dug.
“I think that there’s a lot of appeal for this type of work in a city like San Francisco, that has an overlapping of so many cultures. I think it’s really appropriate to have a celebration of Scott Pilgrim in the Mission district, where there’s probably the greatest intersection of cultures.”
go rio! 😀