Following today’s blockbuster news of SCOTT PILGRIM’S FINEST HOUR, with such ancillary products as this super sweet WALLPAPER, attention turned to one thing:
Are those his nads?
As you can very clearly see, Pilgrim is holding a “sword”, proud and straight, and the hilt is…waist-level, leaving the knob, or “pommel” as it’s known in sword-talk (kashika in Japanese), just below crotch level, giving a very, very subtle suggestion of testicles.
Added to the fact that they are shaped just like balls. With a heart on them.
Over on Twitter, creator Bryan Lee O’Malley swiftly addressed the issue of the pommel plums:
Let’s get it out of the way: SCOTT PILGRIM GETS HIS BALLS TOGETHER, SCOTT PILGRIM’S FINEST NUTSACK, SCOTT PILGRIM NUTS UP
Which still leaves the question of…WHY? What does it mean??? The obvious symbolism can’t help but be deliberate. Is O’Malley saying that Pilgrim, who’s been getting it together for a while now, has finally learned to balance eros and agape? The addition of the heart to the penis-sword suggests that after working through his childish attachment to Knives, and the passing glamours of sexual relationships, as he mans up to battle, love is the secret of his strength. Perhaps by uniting the twin symbols of virility and romance, Pilgrim is showing that he has become a true “complete” man.
OR, is his firm grip on his penis/sword a reference to self-gratification? The bold red color of the pommel suggests sexual arousal, as does the sword position. Is IT a symbol that Scott is ready for battle…or sexual congress?
OR….is it all just a joke?
One thing’s for certain, given the billions and billions of comic book covers that reference female anatomy, it’s nice to have a change-up now and then.
What do YOU think?
I don’t think the testicular reference was intended, but once he realized people saw it that way O’Malley clearly has a sense of humor about it all.
Or put another way: “That’s nuts.”
I think it means after his darkest moment, Scott Pilgrim has grown a pair! He’s a MAN NOW!
I’m with Ian that it was a mistake. I think O’Malley designed a sword with a heart at the end of it for the comic. Then later when the cover was finished and too far along to change it, someone pointed out to him the location of the heart.
Oh phew I thought I was the only one with balls on the brain.
The heart placement drove me nuts while coloring it! HA!
“just below crotch level, giving a very, very subtle suggestion of testicles”
-there’s nothing subtle about it.
Now, the large flyer in the movie, Dodgeball, that said like, Go Balls Deep! Or Balls Out or something (I forget) but you get the picture, that was subtle.
This isn’t the first time that sword has appeared, see Vol. 4…
It reminds me of an image I saw drawn when I worked in Creative Services at The Walt Disney Company (before your time there, Heidi). We adjoined the Consumer Products department, where they drew or tweaked all the art created for every conceivable kind of licensed product.
The art was of Winnie the Pooh, and it was for a child’s inflatable wading pool.
At a glance, it was typical Pooh, with him sitting down and licking a glop of honey from his paw.
Unfortunately, the angle shot was such that the arm of his licked paw was behind his body, the wrist of the paw was behind his two sitting legs, and it could have just have easily been seen as coming up from between them near his crotch…
…and suddenly it was a completely different drawing.
If one person out of many hadn’t seen it from this, er, perspective, it would’ve been approved and used, not unlike (I think) this tassel on the sword hilt.
–Lee
“Oh phew I thought I was the only one with balls on the brain.”
Not on the brain, exactly, but I was just bumping a pair with my chin. ;)
And now you’re a MAN! A MAN, MAN, MAYAWWN!
O’Malley’s totally having his fun with us, and we LIKE it!
Now that it has been pointed out, I can’t un-see Scott Pilgrim’s heart-nuts.