ELAYNE RIGGS: Wanderlust

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.

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4 Responses

  1. Vinnie Bartilucci says:

    Thank god you didn't have the lyrics to "Eep Opp Ork Ahh Ah" with you; they'd have shot you on sight.Gotta love oppressive governments. My mom and dad went to Europe once, well before I was a glimmer in my father's martini. Mom decided to take some pictures of the coastline, blissfully unaware there was a naval base on the other side of the water, just barely in sight. She was immmedately asked by burly men with coats and guns why she chose to photograph that particular spot, etc etc. Some time later while travelling by train, somewhere in the area the Firesign Theatre referred to as "Enroute", all the travellers were asked (okay, TOLD) to exit the train while it was routinely searched. My mother, well-meaning but naive as she was, was going to complain about the wait. My father hasily restrained her, explaining to her that he enjoyed her company, and wished to continue to enjoy it.I still remember Peter David's travelogue about visiting Romania while filming a Trancers movie. He learned about how beggar parents would regularly deform their children by poking out an eye or breaking a leg and allowing it to set wrong, because such pitiful sights would inspire greater contributions from tourists.America is indeed a young country. As Terry Pratchett says, his home's lawn is older that America is. It's just nice that we've been able to get as far as we have in that time. And then we visit other countries, which usually serves the purpose of reminding us how good we have it here. I'll take internal plumbing and Playstation over some ruins any day. (Cue recording of "The Jet Set" by Joe Jackson)

  2. Elayne Riggs says:

    Well, we may "have it good" here but all in all I'd probably rather live in Canada or in many Western European countries (assuming I spoke the language) or Scandanavian countries or Australia or New Zealand if I had a choice (and a job) waiting for me than live in the US, particularly given things like health insurance, life expectancy, etc. The point of travel isn't to make us more xenophobic, after all, it's to help relate to other people and ideas. All the places I mentioned seem to have saner governments than we do at the moment.

  3. Mark Behar says:

    Out of curiousity, why did you put quotation marks around the word democracy when you referred to Israel?

  4. Elayne Riggs says:

    Out of curiosity Mark, what would you call a country that subjugates the majority of its population?