Articles by elayne-riggs
Wed Sep 10, 2008 — by Elayne Riggs
Camera Phone Zen, by Elayne Riggs
It's All Good
After the past two weeks, I think I’m seriously burned out on political chatter for now. And as it’s sort of a “between” time here at the Riggs Residence, with Robin’s DC work all out in shops and his IDW assignment not debuting for two months, I haven’t gotten terribly worked up over comics lately. (It doesn’t help that I have three months’ worth of DC comp boxes yet to read.) I adore September, particularly weather-wise, but I also think we’re in kind of a weird few weeks of stasis, with the baseball playoffs and the new TV season and lots of other things just over the horizon but not quite here yet.
So, what to discuss this week? By the end of last weekend I was still clueless, then Montezuma had a bit of revenge so I’m not feeling as creative as I’d hoped when meeting the Dreaded Deadline Doom. Fortunately, being married to an artist, I’ve learned that when you can’t dazzle ‘em with brilliance or baffle ‘em with bull, you can always point to the pretty pictures!
My friend and Aquaman maven extraordinaire Laura Gjovaag has started a series on her blog called Camera Phone Zen, her take on Jon Stewart's "moments of zen" from The Daily Show. Up until now I haven't been big on taking pictures using my phone -- heck, as readers may recall I can't even text, I'm one of those weird 20th century people who uses her telephone for, you know, phone calls. But small as it is, my digital camera still takes up enough room in my hip pack (yes, New Yorker and proud of it, my commuting uniform pretty much consists of work clothes, sneakers and hip pack) that I don't feel like schlepping it around every day. And once I get the hang of how to actually snap the photo at the right moment, I'll probably get a lot better with the camphone.
Sun Sep 7, 2008 — by Elayne Riggs
ComicMix Columns & Features for the Week Ending September 7, 2008
Bringing you reading, writing and... more reading!
It's back to school time for the kiddies, and the promise of cooler weather at last for those of us who live in those parts of the US that still have seasons! I love September, don't you? Particularly as it means the end of the political conventions and only two more months left in the Silly Season. Here's what we've had for you this past week:
- Mike Gold - Brainiac On Banjo: Getting Screwed
- Dennis O'Neil - The Four-Color Answer: Turning Comics Into Manga
- Me - It's All Good: Getting Catty
- John Ostrander - Tales From The O-zone: Catnapped
- Michael Davis - Straight, No Chaser: Country First
- Andrew Wheeler - Manga Friday: Swords and Psychics
- Martha Thomases - Brilliant Disguise:Sarah Palin: Storytelling
Let me know when the rugrats are settled down and it's safe to visit Staples again...
Wed Sep 3, 2008 — by Elayne Riggs
Getting Catty, by Elayne Riggs
It's All Good
Humans have been fascinated by felines both big and small since the beginnings of recorded history. At times we’ve both worshipped them (as did the ancient Egyptians) and reviled them (as did medieval Europeans, thus opening themselves up to the spread of the Black Plague when the witchcraft-associated kitties weren’t around in sufficient numbers to keep the rats at bay). And they’ve probably always been a big part of our mythology and folklore, including making multiple appearances in comics, from superheroes like Catman and Kitten to adult stuff like Fritz the Cat to funny animal and anthropomorphic fare.
But lately two big-cat names have infiltrated our culture to the extent that we’re all probably sick of them by now. I’m secretly hoping for Matt Groening to include them in his Forbidden Words list for 2009 so we never have to deal with them again, because they -- like a number of other catty terms (such as, um, “catty”) -- are used to impart negative attitudes towards women. And being one of those women-types, I tend not to like negative things directed at me simply because of my internal plumbing.
Sun Aug 31, 2008 — by Elayne Riggs
ComicMix Columns & Features for the Week Ending August 31, 2008
We continue to labor for you!
As we bid goodbye to August and so much more, we mark endings and new beginnings. Our production head and cofounder Glenn Hauman returns with not one but two installments of his way-too-occasional column, our news editor Bob Greenberger's been posting up a storm, and it's rumored that ComicMix has some interesting things coming down the pike, but I couldn't possibly say. I just do a column and these roundups:
- Mike Gold - Brainiac On Banjo: Let's Go Raise Us Some Dumb Kids
- Dennis O'Neil - The Four-Color Answer: Heroic Gloom
- Glenn Hauman - Above and Beyond: Twenty years as a utility infielder
- Alan Kistler - ComicMix Six: Batman's Super-Powers
- Me - It's All Good: Truthiness in Advertising
- John Ostrander - Tales From The O-zone: Given You A Number
- Michael Davis - Straight, No Chaser: If You're Not There, You Just Won't Get It - Conclusion
- Andrew Wheeler - Manga Friday: As Different As Possible
- Martha Thomases - Brilliant Disguise: Shipping Late
- Glenn Hauman - Above and Beyond: Apple Censoring Comics? Not So Fast...
As we enjoy our federal holiday away from the office, let's salute all those freelancers who don't get paid when they don't work -- and, sadly more than a few who don't get paid even when they do.
Wed Aug 27, 2008 — by Elayne Riggs
Truthiness in Advertising, by Elayne Riggs
It's All Good
The 2008 Democratic convention is currently well underway. It being the Age of Reality Shows That Aren’t Real, every bit of spontaneity is of course tightly scripted to allow for maximum media control, not unlike all those Beijing Olympics stories that practically write themselves. What you see is pretty much what they tell you you’ll get.
As a society, we seem to have inured ourselves to accepting style over substance as the norm. We judge books by their covers all the time -- even more so when we look at comics. First impressions are the lasting ones. We expect what’s on the cover to reflect what’s inside, often because we’ve been assured that it will. When the cover artist’s style doesn’t jibe with the interior art, the result can be a bit jarring. When the cover art misrepresents the story within, we can feel cheated or used.
And that’s all well and good when it comes to consumer entertainment. We’re used to being lied to, it’s all part of the advertising fake-out. If a certain type of cover art moves product, the actual interior content is irrelevant from the seller’s point of view. We accept (some more grudgingly than others) that we’re going to be subjected to this little dance every time we buy, and buy into, our culture of mass-produced entertainment.
The problem arises, as it usually does, when this mentality shifts from the fictional to the real, and we find ourselves judging people by their “covers.”
Continue reading Truthiness in Advertising, by Elayne Riggs ›
Sun Aug 24, 2008 — by Elayne Riggs
ComicMix Columns & Features for the Week Ending August 24, 2008
Where did everybody go?
The traditional summer vacation week has begun, with most family-types heading to familiar retreats and time shares before the kids return to school, while politicos gear up for their quadrennial conventions with pundits in tow. Gonna be a weird week, I'm thinking. But we'll still be here, bringing you our regular columns and features. Here's the roundup from this past week:
- Mike Gold - Brainiac On Banjo: The Real World
- Dennis O'Neil - The Four-Color Answer: Oh
- Me - It's All Good: Har-Asses
- John Ostrander - Tales From The O-zone: Framing the Question
- Michael Davis - Straight, No Chaser: If You're Not There, You Just Won't Get It, Part 3
- Andrew Wheeler - Manga Friday: Lawless, Winged, and Unconfined
- Martha Thomases - Brilliant Disguise: Obama-Palooza
Loads and loads of hugs to our newly-hired news editor, Bob Greenberger! Want my old ComicMix business cards?
Wed Aug 20, 2008 — by Elayne Riggs
Har-Asses, by Elayne Riggs
It's All Good
I must confess, I didn’t read a lot of San Diego con reports this year. My SDCC attending days are probably well behind me; in addition to Robin just not being as into comic conventions as my first husband Steve was (maybe it’s because, for many pros, conventions are part of their job, whereas for the rest of us they’re part of a hobby), between hotel and airfare costs the darn thing has just gotten ridiculously expensive, and that’s if you can get a room or a flight or even admittance at all.
Plus, there’s the mobility thing, which has started becoming less of an issue now that my new job has increased my physical activity to a level it hasn’t seen in a number of years and my 50-year-old body is responding accordingly, much to my surprise. Of course, this year’s excuse has also been the job thing; after being out of work over half the year, I wasn’t about to make plans to travel anywhere further than New Jersey during the first few months of my new employment!
But, aside from the always-enjoyable pictorials that many folks uploaded to their blogs, the two posts that piqued my interest the most this year had to do with harassment. Yes, we’re still talking about harassment in this day and age. But, as has been pointed out recently in response to hypocritical and sanctimonious politicians presuming to lecture Russia from their own lack of moral high ground with admonitions like “this doesn’t happen in the 21st century” -- well yes, yes it does. Anything that’s happening now is by definition happening in the 21st century. One can certainly argue that we as a civilization ought to have moved beyond sexual harassment by now, but one can argue we should have moved beyond various forms of discrimination and intimidation hundreds of years ago as well. It’s still happening even today, and it still needs to be addressed.
Fortunately in the 21st century we have an amazing communications tool that, to our collective knowledge, has never existed before in the entirety of human history. This electronic paper trail certainly has its flaws, but it also helps hold people accountable when there’s no other recourse. So when Rachel Edidin writes an open letter decrying the behavior of someone at San Diego who sought hugs from unwilling strangers, it gets discussed in an open forum where all sorts of interesting observations are made. One commenter noted it wasn't "necessarily a male privilege thing," while Rachel herself added "I was generally hella impressed with the general respect for personal space at SDCC. In crowds packed shoulder-to-shoulder, I encountered only a very little bit of pushing, and aside from Creepy Hug Guy, I didn't have a single encounter that made me uncomfortable." Someone else pointed out that "In Canada pestering a stranger for physical contact is a form of criminal assault even if it's not intended sexually."
Sun Aug 17, 2008 — by Elayne Riggs
ComicMix Columns & Features for the Week Ending August 17, 2008
We have the technology!
You know, it's not like the Olympics broadcasters on NBC get paid to talk for a living or anything. I actually heard one of them exclaim, after Michael Phelps won his record-breaking eighth gold of these 8-8-08 Games, "This has never happened before, and may never happen before!" I immediately looked around for a TARDIS. Then again, I keep confusing "Citius, Altius, Fortius" ("Faster, Higher, Stronger") with the opening from the Six Million Dollar Man ("better... faster... stronger") anyway, so there you are. Meanwhile, ComicMix columnists have been jumping some hurdles of our own for you:
- Mike Gold - Brainiac On Banjo: Comics Out Of The Closet
- Dennis O'Neil - The Four-Color Answer: Is Hillary Clinton Really The Thing?
- Me - It's All Good: Unscripted
- John Ostrander - Tales From The O-zone: A Matter of Opinion
- Michael Davis - Straight, No Chaser: If You're Not There, You Just Won't Get It, Part 2
- Andrew Wheeler - Manga Friday: The Naughty Bits
- Martha Thomases - Brilliant Disguise: Mark Phelps, Darra Torres, Aquaman and Me
How can geeks be this into international competition? Well, when else are you gonna see dressage and badminton and water polo and trampoline? At least, in between the endless bouts of beach volleyball?
Wed Aug 13, 2008 — by Elayne Riggs
Unscripted, by Elayne Riggs
It's All Good
Last weekend, New York City had its annual Del Close marathon. I’m sure our esteemed editor Mike Gold and my fellow columnist John Ostrander were somewhere about, if only in spirit. I was home doing housework, lounging about and occasionally glancing at the Olympics. Which can be tough, by the way, if you’ve got a female gaze. I do wish the men’s and women’s sports getups bore a bit more resemblance to each other, kinda like the outfits most of the countries wore during the Parade of Nations.
But instead we have women’s volleyball team uniforms, for both the indoor and beach variety, that consist of either porn-movie short-shorts or bikini bottoms, while the guys get to wear nice loose regulation exercise-type shorts. I cry unfair! Butt shot after butt shot, and the only time my prurient interest is slightly catered to is when it rains and the boys’ clothes start to lovingly cling to them… er. Ahem. Where was I? Oh yeah, and what’s with the creepy male coaches for all the women’s teams? In this day and age that’s as unseemly as me drooling over young nubile volleyball-playing boys… Uh. Well.
So, I’ve been sitting here improv’ing on my computer keyboard. I do that a lot. Maybe it’s the writer’s version of riffing on a jazz tune. Or was that reefering? I’m so not hep. Robin says our marriage sometimes feels like a never-ending improv routine. I think the best marriages ought to be like that, with two well-matched partners constantly playing off each other. Of course, as accident-prone as I am, I could wish my particular situation involved more wit and less slapstick, but there you are.
Sun Aug 10, 2008 — by Elayne Riggs
ComicMix Columns & Features for the Week Ending August 10, 2008
Bringing you an Olympic-sized pool of talent!
Don't bother me, I'm watching the 'lympics. As if I followed any of these sports at any other time. We've had some good sports here in ComicMix too; here's a bit of what they've done for you this past week:
- Mike Gold - Brainiac On Banjo: Forward... Into The Past
- Rick Marshall - Doctor Who In Review: Season Four, Episode #13: Journey's End
- Dennis O'Neil - The Four-Color Answer: A Billion Dollars Worth Of Respect
- Me - It's All Good: Always a Workaround
- John Ostrander - Tales From The O-zone: Semi-Controlled Chaos
- Michael Davis - Straight, No Chaser: If You're Not There, You Just Won't Get It
- Andrew Wheeler - Manga Friday: Here We Go Again
- Martha Thomases - Brilliant Disguise: Superman and My Homies
Now will someone please put some proper shorts on those female volleyball players?
Wed Aug 6, 2008 — by Elayne Riggs
Always a Workaround, by Elayne Riggs
It's All Good
Last Friday I took my first PTO (paid time off) day since starting my new job, as I’d slightly injured myself the previous Wednesday evening (thank goodness I’d already been to the comics shop by that point). As the injury involved my leg, and as I knew I’d be doing a lot of driving on Saturday, I planned to schlep to and from the office rather painfully on Thursday to take care of needed business, then treat myself to a non-commute day on Friday, which I’d devote to blogging on my home computer.
I don’t blog as fervently as I used to. My priorities have changed a bit in the last year. This past year when I’d devoted myself largely to finding a new job, a number of friends advised me to get back into the fiction writing I’d abandoned as my former job had sucked up my creative soul, observing “You may never have this chance again!” But I was too anxious over income, and the practical side of me won out. I know I’ll write until I no longer have the capacity for independent thought, even if that writing only takes place in my head. However, my desire to live the rest of my life in the style to which I’ve become accustomed (paying rent and bills, having a well-stocked fridge, etc.) overruled my second favorite hobby -- like many writers, my favorite hobby is reading, not writing -- and I fell into different patterns.
At the moment my newfound routine is still being worked out. For a number of reasons both in and out of my control, I do not blog at the office, and I haven’t been writing all that much in the evenings and weekends. But I feel that’s going to start to change (the latter, that is), and not just because the Yankees and Mets really ought to be doing better at this point in the season and thus I often turn off the TV before the game’s even official. I’m starting to feel the drive again. I’m finally happy and comfortable both in my work life and my home surroundings, a confluence that hasn’t existed as such in over a decade. And on Friday, despite the injury, I was jazzed to write. By gosh, I was going to tackle all those unread posts from my friends’ and acquaintances’ blogs and then Get To It! Heck, I might even post all those photos I took of the All-Star parade up 6th Avenue a few weeks ago!
So I went onto the edit window for Pen-Elayne on the Web, and that’s when the trouble started.
Sun Aug 3, 2008 — by Elayne Riggs
ComicMix Columns & Features for the Week Ending August 3, 2008
Still bringing the heat!
August? August? Where did July go? As if anyone's recovered from San Diego yet. As the dog days approach, ComicMix is still barking up all the right trees with our regular columns and features; here's what we've broughnt you this past week:
- Mike Gold - Whizzy's Wazoo: Shiny, Shiny Superheroes
- Rick Marshall - Doctor Who In Review: Season Four, Episode #12 - "The Stolen Earth"
- Dennis O'Neil - The Four-Color Answer: Speaking Up
- Me - It's All Good: Foster Children
- John Ostrander - Tales From The O-zone: Our Own Private Gotham
- Michael Davis - Straight, No Chaser: The Day The Earth Moved
- Andrew Wheeler - Manga Friday: Who Are You?
- Van Jensen - The Weekly Haul: Comics Reviews for July 30, 2008
- Van Jensen - This Week in Trinity: Part 9
- Martha Thomases - Brilliant Disguise: Little Earthquakes
So cry havoc, and let loose the dogs of peace!
Wed Jul 30, 2008 — by Elayne Riggs
Foster Children, by Elayne Riggs
It's All Good
It’s finally official. On Saturday in San Diego, IDW announced a new project based on Peter David’s Sir Apropos of Nothing series of novels, to be written by Peter with art by Robin Riggs. “Art” as in pencils, inks and colors -- or, as those wacky Brits say, “colours.” Don’t ask me why, they have enough trouble pronouncing words correctly without trying to spell them right as well. Anyway, Robin and I are both pretty excited about this miniseries, and not only because the offer came at the same time as my current job offer so it means we both get to celebrate employment at the same time.
First of all, it’s Peter, whom we’ve both known for a long while and who’s an absolute delight even though he’s never introduced us to his equally-famous friends like Harlan Ellison and Billy Mumy. Secondly, I love the character of Apropos... well, not exactly “love,” he’s kind of a despicable rogue, but I love his adventures, and I love the conceit of a character who’s supposed to be secondary and an afterthought suddenly being the protagonist of his own stories. It’s kind of like if women were lead characters in their own right instead of love interests and fridge fodder! What a concept!
Anyway, the other reason I’m loving the idea of Robin doing a Sir Apropos comic book series is, even though it’s going to be parodying bits of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, art-wise Robin wants to bring to it a sort of Hal Foster Prince Valiant vibe. I think the first story Rob and I ever did together, a 2-pager called Sailor’s Wife, had this sort of feel to it, and the whole medieval atmosphere worked really well with his penciling style.
So Rob has been immersed in Foster these past few weeks, going over all his Prince Valiant collections, studying them for inspiration and visual ideas. He even taped together a number of 11 x 17 sheets to make a page (see photo) the size at which Hal Foster originally worked. It's easy to see how much more illustrative you can get when you're working 30 x 40. But it takes a true master to know how to draw so that no detail is entirely lost in the reproduction.
Sun Jul 27, 2008 — by Elayne Riggs
ComicMix Columns & Features for the Week Ending July 27, 2008
San Diego and Sans Diego!
With so much news coming out of San Diego from ComicMix HQ (at booth #3208) and elsewhere, it's my job back here in New York to make sure all our regular columns and features don't get lost in the hype! Here's your weekly one-stop shopping source for all our exclusive goodies:
- Mike Gold - Whizzy's Wazoo: We Will Think For You
- Rick Marshall - Doctor Who In Review: Season Four, Episode #11 - Turn Left
- Dennis O'Neil - The Four-Color Answer: Getting Respect
- Me - It's All Good: The Comics Confluence
- John Ostrander - Tales From The O-zone: Spam Diego
- Michael Davis - Straight, No Chaser: I am the man! OR I am Sorry!
- Andrew Wheeler - Manga Friday: 'Me and the Devil Blues'
- Arthur Tebbel and Christopher Toia - ComicMix Six: Six Groups of People to Kick out of San Diego Comic-Con
- Martha Thomases - Brilliant Disguise: San Diego Comic-Con: But enough about me...
- Van Jensen - The Weekly Haul: Comics Reviews for July 26, 2008
- Van Jensen - This Week in Trinity: Part 8
So, I hear there's a convention going on this weekend...
Wed Jul 23, 2008 — by Elayne Riggs
The Comics Confluence, by Elayne Riggs
It's All Good
As The Dark Knight breaks more box-office records (with its accompanying Watchman trailer leading to orders for the original book jumping up near the top of the Amazon charts) and Hollywood relocates to San Diego for the coming four-day weekend that used to be known primarily as Geek Prom, it’s clear that comics continue to affect the wider culture as never before. Two recent examples of this seepage and mingling have reared their heads in the world of toys and politics – respectively, as reported here on ComicMix and lots of other places, Mattel’s decision to release a special-edition Barbie dressed as Black Canary, and the New Yorker cover featuring a scare-fantasy version of Barack and Michelle Obama. Lots of comics folk have weighed in quite nicely on the latter, including our own Mike Gold, but heaven forfend I don’t take my turn before the subject is completely eclipsed by the next manufactured controversy in the ever-spinning news cycle!
To the Barbie matter first. For whatever reason, the UK newspaper The Sun took the wacko group Christian Voice seriously (which is like American media taking Bill Donohue’s Catholic League seriously) when the CV nutbars complained about the incarnation. And you just know an organization that supports marital rape has the moral authority to comment on how the Canary costume is “irresponsible” and “filth”!
I can sort of see the sighing over fishnets. I’ve never liked fishnets. I think I tried to wear them when I was a teenager, years before wearing ripped ones became fashionable (I think I would have liked ripped ones), and they were just all itchy and made marks on my skin and were simply uncomfortable. They seemed like something made for guys to leer at on women, rather than something made for women to enjoy. Likewise, I don’t care for the way high heels can cripple a woman’s legs, and I don't wear 'em myself because I figure I'm tall enough, but the heels on those boots aren't really that high. And leather? Seriously? A leather jacket and gloves, some sign of the impending Apocalypse? Didn't the outrage about this clothing choice reach its peak around the era of Marlon Brando and James Dean?
