Ho Ho Ho, It’s Magic, by Elayne Riggs

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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6 Responses

  1. Kathy Pearlman says:

    By the way, have you checked for a comics shop in your new neighborhood? You never know, there might be one closer than you think! Here’s a Master List for NY –http://the-master-list.com/USA/New_York/index.shtml

    • Elayne Riggs says:

      Yes Kathy, there’s a comic shop in my neighborhood a short bus ride away, but I have "brand loyalty" to Midtown.

  2. Neil Ottenstein says:

    Thanks for the pointers to the Newsarama articles. The thought of "internal story consistency does have to abide by certain rules" is key to the whole issue and it appears that One More Day doesn't have that. The more I read about the story and the decisions behind the story, the worse I feel about it. The new Amazing Spider-Man stories have the potential to be great fiction, but I will not risk my money on them. If after the dust settles they are greatly praised, then maybe I'll get a collection. At the moment, I don't think the books will have the Spider-Man that I want to read about.

  3. Vinnie Bartilucci says:

    "It's Magic, we don't have to explain it" has got internet meme written all over it, and I've gotten on the bandwagon early by doing t-shirts.http://www.cafepress.com/omdismagic I was originally planning to make them a fundraiser for the Hero Initiative, but they don't comment on stories as a matter of policy (considering JoeQ's on their board, that's not a surprise) so they can't officially be a fundraising item. That doesn't stop me from taking their share of the proceeds and dropping them in the jar at the next few shows, however, which is my plan.Recalling an old Peter David story (where he had Rick Jones just happen to carry an emergency parachute in case he got trapped on an exploding Skrull cruiser) and BID column, he coined the law that if you give the reader/viewer what they want, they will forgive any crazy thing you had to think up to give it to them. Applying the reciprocal of that rule, if the reader does NOT like what you have done, they will leap on every little nit and pick until it bleeds, infects and has to be cut off. And that's what's happened here, in spades, moons hearts stars and clovers.There are so many areas that this story rankles people, it's hard to pick one:-The butterfly effect of how many stories the lack of a marriage or an unmasking) touches directly or obliquely. Much of JMS' run and almost the entire run of Peter's FNSM are rendered moot, just to stay recent. The Clone Saga and much of Venom's history need some serious re-jiggering as well.-The basic anathema of the idea of Peter making a deal with the (or if you prefer, "A") devil at all.-The very basic fact of why did the marriage need to be uncreated in the first place.I don't know how much of creators coming to blows has really happened yet. The people directly involved in the story (JoeQ, JMS, et al) have all been courteous to one another, JoeQ not even responding to JMS' more complete relation of the "It's Magic" discussion. The fans have been positively vitriolic, slinging names and epithets like shuriken in a ninja movie. The creators know that someday they may want to work with/for these other people, and a modicum of decorum will keep that from not happening. Peter David's "It's not the way I would have gone" quote from his blog has been blown up into a condemnation of the plot, so much so that he had to comment again and making it clear that he had NOT mean that, he meant exactly what he said.I was one of the people who believed it might all be a swerve and in issue four of the story they'd spin it around and turn Mephisto down. I'm STILL holding to the belief that this is all a short-term plot intended to spark new excitement about Peter and MJ's relationship and it'll all be made better shortly and Mephisto defeated. Sort of a New/Classic Coke controversy scenario.It's my opinion, I don't have to explain it.

    • Neil Ottenstein says:

      From the Joe Q interviews I've read, the change appears to be the long term plan (a "married Spider-Man is too old"). As you say, it still might turn into a "New/Classic Coke controversy scenario" though, and on a future editorial retreat they might decide to change things back. A year from now we might be wondering what all the fuss was about.

  4. Kathy Pearlman says:

    Spider-Man was one of my (aw, heck, let me admit it – my only) favorite Marvel comics. Shifting everything back where it started helps with the multitude of titles the poor Spider-Man kid has. Let's face it – if you're over 12, comics have to be magic, in that they should, I believe, make you feel like you're a kid again…