Author: Elayne Riggs

ComicMix Columns & Features for the Week Ending September 28, 2008

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  • September 29, 2008

Between sleeping away the morning and watching the last Mets game at Shea Stadium in the afternoon (okay, after the umpteenth IFC airing of A Hard Day’s Night was over), I almost plumb forgot to remind y’all of what our regular columnists have brought you this past week:

Newly added to our list of regular features are Chuck Rozakis’ two webcomics columns.  Hope the folks down in Baltimore see this in time, and I hope I can catch up with all my other stuff before the new year!

When Sums Don’t Add Up, by Elayne Riggs

  • News
  • September 24, 2008

rmcalc-1-2485759So I read via Colleen Doran’s blog that the LHC, the Large Hadron Collider, has gone bust, at least temporarily. Apparently it, like the Internet router Monday morning at the Riggs Residence, suffered some sort of electrical malfunction. Our router’s fine as of the typing of this column, but the LHC will take a bit more time to get going again on its way to possibly wiping out all known life. Which is pretty much okay by me; I have at least four months’ worth of DC comics still unread!

Now, for anyone unclear on what the heck the LHC is supposed to be doing, some wacky and geeky scientist types have put together this handy-dandy hip-hop ditty:

But fairly heavy rotation in our Science and Discovery channel viewing meant Robin and I were more or less up on the basics of dark matter and so forth, and had already mocked them mercilessly. See, here’s what we tend to think of these scientists. We can’t fault them their enthusiasm to find the binding tie that will create a grand unifying Theory of Life, The Universe and Everything (42, by the way). But for scientists, whose chosen profession demands that they question everything and rely primarily on the empirical evidence of their senses, this arrogant certainty doesn’t sit well with me. It’s as if, as Robin observes, the theoretical quantum physicists sat around saying, “Hmm, what can we postulate to make our sums add up?”

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ComicMix Columns & Features for the Week Ending September 21, 2008

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  • September 21, 2008

Well, tomorrow’s equinox marks the actual onset of autumn, but tonight’s the Emmy Awards marking the official changing of the TV season. More or less. With staggered season openers depending on which network you’re talking about, how you watch your shows (webisodes? DVR pile-up?), the idea of a TV season is in flux, but you can always count on ComicMix to feature geek-oriented show reviews as well as our usual columns and features. Here’s what we’ve had for you this past week::

Speaking of politics, so far my favorite new program this season is The Rachel Maddow Show, and I must confess that, between Rachel, her companion pundit hour, baseball wrapping up its 2008 season and all the stuff I’m trying to clear from my DVR, I haven’t been paying much attention to TV premieres…

Fashionably Late, by Elayne Riggs

  • News
  • September 17, 2008

earamid2-1-6850803Whoever thought that lipstick would make major Silly Season news in the 21st century? Although I have to admit I’d rather hear about it being applied to pit bulls and pigs than human beings, but I’ve never had the best relationship with makeup, accessories and other fribbles, as this past week has reminded me.

Every September sees the re-emergence of Fashion Week here in New York City. In keeping with the acknowledgement that this Silly Season is in many ways sillier than most, this year Mercedes-Benz, the chief sponsor, has even decided to go with an election theme on the event’s home page. Maybe they want to emphasize how uselessly trivial it all is. Or, to be fair, how much “fun” people have ooh’ing and aah’ing at emaciated creatures who rarely resemble real people strutting the catwalks wearing creations that rarely resemble real clothing. And there are all sorts of tie-ins, one “big deal” this year being Target’s special “Bullseye Bodega” outlets in strategic areas of the city, only open this past Friday through Monday, which purported to sell high fashions at low (i.e., Target-level) prices.

Fool that I was, I ventured into one around noon on Friday, just out of curiosity, and found it to be the single most pretentious experience I’d ever witnessed. A cramped place with absolutely nothing of any practical value to me, but filled to the brim with a sea of people desperate for couture at closure level. I saw only one piece that would have fit me, a XXL man’s thermal top for around $35, but I’m afraid I just wasn’t in the market for one, and even if I were I could have gotten the same thing (sans designer label) for far less money by shopping at Amazon. That’s the kinda gal I am. But other gals seemed to like it just fine, so obviously one’s mileage may vary.

Even comic geeks have been able to get into the spirit of fashion this year.  My ComicMix colleague Martha Thomases has reported on the “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy” exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Rick Marshall covered the Marvel Fashion Show at the San Diego Comic-Con. There does appear to be a fun element to the idea of heroic costumes being more frivolous than practical, especially when worn by women. But even the guys are taken to task, and taken down a peg, by wry observations about their chosen uniforms. The word “capes” alone elicits either giggle-fits when watching Brad Bird skewer that fashion-don’t in The Incredibles, or sneers in comic pages wherein non-powered citizens dismiss the antics and lifestyles of the heroic and famous.

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Camera Phone Zen, by Elayne Riggs

  • News
  • September 10, 2008

08-09-08-1407-1879103After 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. (more…)

ComicMix Columns & Features for the Week Ending September 7, 2008

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  • September 8, 2008

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:

Let me know when the rugrats are settled down and it’s safe to visit Staples again…

Getting Catty, by Elayne Riggs

  • News
  • September 3, 2008

attackofthepumas-8308565Humans 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.

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ComicMix Columns & Features for the Week Ending August 31, 2008

  • News
  • August 31, 2008

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:

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.

Truthiness in Advertising, by Elayne Riggs

  • News
  • August 27, 2008

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.” (more…)

ComicMix Columns & Features for the Week Ending August 24, 2008

  • News
  • August 24, 2008

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:

Loads and loads of hugs to our newly-hired news editor, Bob Greenberger! Want my old ComicMix business cards?

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