ELAYNE RIGGS: The Stupid — It Burns!

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. Martha Thomases says:

    That was Vin Diesel, not The Rock, in Chronicles of Riddick.

    • Elayne Riggs says:

      Dang — corrected, thanks. Gotta be careful talking about stuff they couldn't pay me to see (despite the presence of the divine Dame Judy).

  2. Klio says:

    For me, it's all about the context. I'm a Romanophile, but I love those 1950s sword-and-sandals movies with Richard Burton and Victor Mature showing off their beautiful–I mean, manly–knees. But if a modern cable-teevee series or movie comes on proclaiming itself to be based on historical events (Caesar, Augustus, whoever), it had better have that history right–because that's going to be the only memorable history a lot of people get. "Gladiator" would have gotten the swords-and-sandals pass from me if the movie-makers hadn't been so loud about saying they had every detail right, when they barely rate a C-minus on that front. I'm all for teaching history through entertainment. But if you're just having fun and using familiar names to tell an entertaining story, by all means make that clear. Don't pretend accuracy.I saw a recent blogpost about Connor's mother, the backstory of which I only know because I read a blogpost about the same characters months ago. I'll have to disagree with you on that–it's one thing when successive generations mix up who did what in the legend of King Arthur or Robin Hood. It's just silly if modern storytellers can't be consistent about a major bit of backstory they should simply be able to look up. Accidents happen, inconsistencies occur. And a polite reminder to the storytellers ("uhm… no… that's not how it happened") is not only helpful, it shows that storytelling does still matter to people, and that stories (or the overall mythology) can last for the long haul, not just a moment's diversion.(Furie? Furie? Is that because it's more girlie? :) )

  3. Tinderblast says:

    Also have to disagree with you about the Shado as Connor's mother issue. If it were a bit of throwaway backstory as you characterize it, that would be one thing. But in her last major appearance several months ago, in Connor's own mini-series, she was making out with him! I would say that's kind of an important detail, wouldn't you?Furthermore, in none of the reviews I was reading was this editorial blunder focused on to the exclusion of all other commentary, so I think you've also mischaracterized the amount of fixation on the part of reviewers.