ELAYNE RIGGS: Left Behind

Elayne Riggs

Elayne Riggs is the creator of the popular blog Pen-Elayne on the Web. She was a founding member of Friends of Lulu, an organization dedicated to increasing the involvement of girls and women in comics, as readers and creators. She is married to inker Robin Riggs, with whom she shares two cats, and has odd love/hate relationship with Hillary Clinton.

You may also like...

14 Responses

  1. John Ostrander says:

    Why didn't someone tell me it was Variations On a Title Week? I missed the memo!One a more serious note — some of your comments remind me of the phenomenon of branding and why some people think some people choose to wear corporate logos on their T-shirts and hats and often pay for the privledge. Goes back to the tribal — our desire to belong to some identifiable group. At one time, this might have been taken by family, ethnic group, church, country or even the job we worked. We've lost confidence in a lot of the institutions, however, and look elsewhere for our identity, for which group we can belong to. Having lost faith in the old tribal ways, we create new ones. Even we nerds have to belong to SOMETHING — which is part of the pleasure of the Cons, even the big ones. It's why some fans will ONLY read Marvel because that's the identity they have chosen for themselves — True Believers. (Even Stan Lee, who created the concept, isn't a True Believer anymore.) Yes,all these identities are artifically created and even sold to us — but maybe that's still the underlying drive — to define ourselves by our Tribe.

  2. Elayne Riggs says:

    I just found out from Jamal Igle's blog there there's even a marketing term for this. "Early adopters." The first people in the comic stores on Wednesday, on iTunes on Tuesday, at the movies on Friday… Didn't we just used to call them "lemmings"?

    • Vinnie Bartilucci says:

      Lemmings are the herd that follows. Early Adopters ("neophiles" for the readers of the Iluminatus! trilogy) are the ones who lead. And if there aren't enough people willing to pay $3,000 for a large-screen TV, there will never be $1,000 and under models, because the manufacturers will assume there's no market.People like being first with a new thing. I recall the Onion piece said one of the things that came with the iPhone was an iPhone hat you could wear, so people would know you HAD an iPhone, even when you weren't using it.

  3. Steve Chaput says:

    I feel badly about missing SD this year, but not even the actually convention. I was looking forward to seeing some friends I haven't gotten to see in person for ten years in some cases. The time when I looked forward to every convention, or even hitting the shops on 'new comics' day are way behind me. Besides, as others have said, it's not really about the comics anymore, is it?

  4. Kathy Pearlman says:

    Being left behind also means you're stuck with the people who thought they wouldn't be…I am glad we had San Diego in the past. New York's Con has been a scream the first two years and considering the size of its accommodations, it's probably larger already than San Diego. My DH has said that retailers in SD were complaining that it was return people the last two days because they didn't allow anyone not holding a ticket in. And that meant – wait for it – no new customers so retailers didn't make enough to pay for their investment. That, in itself, may cut San Diego way back in the future.

    • Linda Gold says:

      No way the New York con is larger than San Diego. You could fit 2 Javits centers in the San Diego space and that was not nearly enough space to comfortably hold the crowds. The Reed folks would love to be the east coast San Diego but without more convention space they will never reach that size.

      • Adriane Nash says:

        Actually the Javits has about 150k square feet more of exhibitors space according to wikipedia but I don't think they are counting anything but the main halls. All the ballrooms, meeting rooms and stuff. That said with 135 thousand people at the SDCC it was crowded but not clastrophobic, the aisles were wide and they certainly know how to mangage crowds far better than anything ever done in NYC.

  5. Robin Riggs says:

    "if there aren't enough people willing to pay $3,000 for a large-screen TV, there will never be $1,000 and under models"Of course there will. Manufacturers just use version 1.0 products to finish their beta testing at the consumer's expense while quickly recouping large chunks of their R&D costs. Sometimes they'll stick with a tachnology that clearly nobody is interested just because of internal company politics. That's why you can still pick up a nice shiny new Sony mini disc player for under $50 when there's never been a real market for it.

  6. Kathy Pearlman says:

    Porportionately, I think ew York is bigger than San Diego. At least that's the way it looked to me. But I was squished into a lot of people in NY…

  7. Adriane Nash says:

    I find it odd that you atart your column stating the fact that you have to work and that's why you'renot off to SDCC and then end with being left behind provides you with more leisure time. I gather you mean left behind in all the trends and not just this trip, in which case its willful. As someone involved a comics-related field like comic-mix and as the news editor to boot, one would think you get the point of getting there first, both as a fan and a journalist.

    • Elayne Riggs says:

      Yes, I meant leisure time when I'm not working — time that I can spend reading and watching baseball and sleeping rather than becoming exhausted and claustrophobic.I understand why other people think it's important to "get there first," which is why ComicMix tries to provide timely information. I'm afraid I'm more of a purveyor than a consumer when it comes to that stuff, though. Heck, I'm still about 3 months behind in my Entertainment Weekly reading and 2-4 months behind in the DC comp box depending on titles. It's amazing how quickly the concept of entertainment immediacy goes by the wayside when one scrambles to make a living (which in turn leaves one exhausted) and doesn't have the luxury of lots of leisure time.Of course, next week I have an enforced ("use it or lose it") vacation week, with absolutely no idea how I'm going to spend it. And your query has inspired my next column, so thanks!

  8. Gary E. Smith says:

    I am trying to get Steve Chaput's email address. Any help??