Seconds is a New York Times Best-Selling graphic novel by Bryan Lee O'Malley whose previous works include Lost At Sea and the Scott Pilgrim series. Seconds is about a woman named Katie Clay, a chef at a successful restaurant aptly titled Seconds who's looking to branch out and start her own restaurant. Problem is the location she chose was a bust, she's running well over budget for the repairs, the end of her previous relationship is still constantly on her mind, and the staff at Seconds are beginning to see her more and more as an egotistical nuisance. Everything changes when a strange spirit named Lis offers Katie a magical mushroom and an accompanying booklet with instructions on how to change a past event; Katie does so at first out of generosity, but then she sees this as a way of fixing the most trivial of her missteps, despite Lis' attempts to stop her in fear of her wishing getting out of control. Soon these alternate realities start entangling Katie in strange situations with an ever-increasing danger and it's up to her to figure out how to stop it and reverse everything to the way things used to be.

Can't say it's a particularly original premise, but O'Malley doesn't make any mistakes in its execution. For anyone who's read his previous works in Scott Pilgrim, Katie is in many ways a lot like Scott; a bit full of herself, easily frustrated when things go awry, and too stubborn to admit to her past mistakes. O'Malley knows how to write a damn good flawed hero. Seconds is a lot more grounded than the Scott Pilgrim series on purpose, giving the twists in its later portions more weight, though O'Malley's narrative quirks still come through. (Noteworthy and something I laughed at a lot was the running gag of Katie and the story's omniscient narrator arguing.) His writing is top notch and his art as a mix of manga-influenced styles and Western newspaper comics has found a perfect blend with this book. The paneling is creative without getting distracting and the color palette he uses is to die for too; there are a lot of browns, oranges, reds, purples, and blues, giving the story an aura of vibrant warmth or crushing isolation depending on the scene. It's stylistically something he's worked towards his whole career and finally accomplished with this book. It's really just a great graphic novel, guys.

Don't know if it's online but you can almost surely find it at your local bookstore...

...or if you're that guy, you can read it in about an hour's worth of time and not buy it at Barnes and Noble while you sip your Starbucks like a prick. Your call. Book is great though.

Hey thanks for the thread Yatahaze!

I'm a huge fan of O'Malley's work and gobbled seconds up within the day it was placed into my hands. I agree with you, it isn't an overly original premise, the idea of a multiple universe story arch has been tackled before. Jeff Smith the famous author of the Bone series also created a graphic novel called Rasl. In my opinion, the multiple universe story line was more part of the plot, and in Seconds exception, explained rather well. I would suggest it if you enjoyed the themes presented in Seconds. Not to say Seconds was a bad story, I loved it, although not nearly as much as Scott Pilgrim.

I find O'Malley writes very personally and within his age group. Scott was 24-ish(don't quote me) at the time and O'Malley was too (probably); I have a feeling a lot of Scott's character was portrayed through O'Malley. This is also true in Seconds as well, the character Katie is in about her early thirty's, much like O'Malley at the time, including a lot of issues and emotions that O'Malley must have felt. Katie as a character is likeable and hate-able in perfect O'Malley fashion, but the emotions and actions/reactions seemed only skin deep. I could tell there was a lot of Brian O'Malley in Katie's character.

Aside from that as you have mentioned, the artwork is fantastic, the warm colors giving life and excitement in times of action. However contrasting with O'Malleys choice of not cool, but dark colours in times of romance, plot, or conflict. This creates a wonderful tone and plays with one of his themes of internal fear, or the unknowing. \/ - more!

O'Malley has created a wonderful piece, I congratulate him not only for making a great story, but also for successfully creating a followup to a series that helped define a genre. I'm so happy that O'Malley created seconds and crafted it well, it proves that he can still work, and create great narratives and art.

TT;DR This was a wonderful followup to the Scott Pilgrim series; when the dust settles I can't wait to see what O'Malley makes next!

I picked up a copy of this today, since I'm a fan of O'Malley and have trust in Yata's judgement. Looking forward to reading it.

Read a little bit, thought it was an alright comic.