Brian Alvey

Link pandering, for better or for worse

607 days ago

No, this is not my take on Jason's retirement. I'll have plenty to share on his retirement and the future of blogging soon enough.

For now I just wanted to say this: I prefer homage over baiting.

Bill Amend's FoxTrot did a really funny parody of popular webcomics, including my favorite XKCD. I loved it and I'm sure those creators loved seeing their work referenced in thousands of printed newspapers.

Compare that to something sensational like Forbes' Attack of the Blogs, which was probably responsible for a good chunk of their site's traffic and display ad delivery that quarter as well as far more links than they deserved (including mine here).

Homage rules. FoxTrot rules.
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Verizon humor

619 days ago

I think I have a pretty good sense of humor. I like to make jokes. I like other peoples' jokes. I just don't get Verizon's peculiar sense of humor.

I ordered FiOS in May. I got an installation date of June 11. On June 11, Verizon Guy #1 came to my house and said:

I am here to install your FiOS. Did someone from Verizon bring the fiber line up from the street to your house yet?

Of course not.

The next day, Verizon Guy #2 came to my door to bring the fiber line up from the street and said:

Did the guy who came here yesterday leave all the equipment I need so I can bring the line up from the street?

Of course not.

Every week since then I've called Verizon to get my FiOS order back on track. Last week they identified me as a person who "wants to reschedule his installation" and said the best they could do was mid-July. I explained that I didn't want to reschedule at all. I wanted them to come out on June 11 and give me FiOS. Finally someone figured out what was going on and -- after giving me grief for ordering my service online instead of over the phone -- said they would get someone out this week.

Just now Verizon Guy #3 showed up at my door and said:

I am here to install your FiOS. Did someone from Verizon bring the fiber line up from the street to your house yet?

I don't get it.
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EZ Street has been nominated for a Harvey Award

627 days ago

This is fantastic news: One of our ComicMix titles has been nominated for "Best Online Comic" at this year's Harvey Awards.

Among its competition are Perry Bible Fellowship (we interviewed its creator Nicholas Gurewitch) and Penny Arcade. How cool is that?

If you haven't checked it out, you can read the entire EZ Street run from the beginning -- just keep hitting page down over and over until you're done. Then come back and let me know how you liked it.
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Chinese Democracy reviewed

631 days ago

Someone near me at a Starbucks was playing all of these "leaked" downloaded tracks today. Yeah, that's my story. Here is my take on what I heard, track by track:

New Song #1
It sounded like a Queensrÿche song. I stopped listening to Queensrÿche a long time ago. I even saw them open for someone last year at Jones Beach and I didn't listen. Not a good omen for the rest of the album.

New Song #2
The music here was straight Linkin Park. I heard strings. Okay, I swear Axl got replaced by Queensrÿche's Geoff Tate at some point during the decade long recording process. Towards the end it became an Evanescence song. Without the male vocal parts.

New Song #3
The music sounded like a slow No Doubt or Maroon 5 song. There were a couple of little Spanish guitar solos. The vocals started out sounding like Axl and then drifted back to Queensrÿche. Why?

Chinese Democracy
This song started out like a song from Operation Mindcrime -- not a very good sign. Then, unbelievably, Axl himself started singing! It rocked. This might be a top ten Guns N' Roses song. Maybe there is hope for this album. One rumor I heard is that some of these are throwaway tracks that won't appear on the real release. Hopefully they keep this one since it's the best track so far (and because the album is called Chinese Democracy).

Continue reading Chinese Democracy reviewed ›
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Congratulations Doc Rivers and Kevin Garnett

634 days ago

I'm not usually one to cheer on a Boston sports team, but I enjoyed watching the Celtics trounce the Lakers in the Finals.

First, KG deserved a championship. Like he said in his mostly incoherent post game interview, he is now "certified".

Second, I love Doc Rivers. I was at MSG for his final game ever as a player. As I recall, he was on the Knicks and he went down under one of the baskets with an injury and they carried him off the court and he never, ever played again. (Wikipedia says he spent one more season as a bench player for the Spurs, but we all know that the Wikipedia is full of bogus information. I will have to go correct his entry later tonight.)

Anyway, congrats to Doc, KG, Celtic-lifer Paul Pierce and 3-point machine Ray Allen on beating L.A.
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Hulk movie mania

639 days ago

I saw in my feed reader that Cinematical picked up our ComicMix article listing all the Hulk comics you should read to get up to speed on the character before seeing the movie that opens tomorrow. When I clicked through I saw that Cinematical had redesigned. Wow, Cinematical looks great! I love the tabs at the top and the comment form now lets you comment as a new member, an existing member or using your AOL screen name. Very slick.

Cinematical also has a good review of the Hulk movie. ComicMix has a great round-up of Hulk movie news including details on the Captain America Hulk cameo which Cinematical covered as well. It seems that the cameo got left on the cutting room floor. Bruce Banner had traveled to the arctic, probably to end his own life, and meets up with Captain America. They say the clip will appear on the DVD and maybe on the Internet. My thought isn't that Banner and Cap have a conversation. I am certain Banner sees (or maybe only the audience sees) Captain America frozen in a block of ice, waiting to be thawed out in his own movie.

One more incredible ComicMix Hulk item. Matt Raub interviewed Hulk producers Kevin Feige and Gale Anne Hurd and director Louis Leterrier on ComicMix TV. I've embedded it here. Enjoy.
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Before you go see the Hulk movie

640 days ago

ComicMix has a great series where they list all of the comics you should read before seeing a hot new superhero movie. They pick the definitive story arcs in a character's history -- including the ones the movies' plots are likely based on.

They started out with 11 Batman Stories to Read Before Watching The Dark Knight and followed it up with 10 Must-Read Stories Before You Watch Iron Man in Theaters. Today they did 10 Must-Read Stories Before You See The Incredible Hulk. I love these!
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Executive assistant, ninjas wanted

641 days ago

Judith sent this job description around to some of her contacts on LinkedIn. We didn't mention that we don't expect just one person to fill this role. It could easily be two or more people, but here's what we're looking for:

Company: Crowd Fusion, Inc.
Job Title: Executive Assistant
Description: Work with CEO, on-site, 4 or 5 days a week to start. Although this position will be eventually be more 'virtual' it would be best if candidates lived in the NYC, Westchester/NY, Greenwich/CT area.

Skilled in as many of the following as possible:
IM, Gmail, Google Docs, feed readers, etc., Word, Excel, Photoshop, travel booking, online shopping/ordering, contact management, meeting scheduling, research, data scrubbing, application installations - Mac & Windows OSes, marketing presentations, home networking, backups, and bookkeeping.

Career Level: Experienced (Non-Manager)
Education Level: College, or Equivalent
Job Type: Employee, Full Time

Of course if one person could do all of this and is local, I would hire him/her in a heartbeat. Maybe I will be lucky enough to find someone multi-talented like the guy in this video.

Oh heck, I knew we forgot stuff. Chef. Personal trainer. Dog groomer. I guess I can save that for the interviews.
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ComicMix: Online Comic Book Reader 2.0

646 days ago

When we quietly released our new ComicMix comic book reader last Friday, one of our readers quickly wrote me and said, "Congratulations on the new Comics Reader at ComicMix. You've made the best reader around even better. Well done."

Thanks!

We made the layout something way more useable thanks to input from our creators, our readers and some of the best designers I know -- including some big suggestions from Mike Propst last year. I posted over on ComicMix today about the millions of new ways to navigate from page to page and many of the other improved reader features. And that's just our online reader.

I know what you're all thinking: "But how can you make a comic book reader application that doesn't make me fill out a registration form or download and install software or force me to learn yet another slow-loading Flash interface?"

That's easy. We respect our audience. We read these comics too.

Before:

After:

Let me know what you think.
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Twitter's business model

657 days ago

I finally figured out a business model for Twitter. It's advertising based and it only works if Twitter doesn't solve their scaling problems.

The way I see it, the most the Twitter user base needs Twitter to be running smoothly is about fourteen hours a day. That leaves ten hours a day of those cute "please try again later" screens. As long as they can continue to add more people than they lose every day, I could see what I have in mind being a sustainable stream of income. Any large ad network -- like Overture, Federated Media or AOL -- would jump at the chance to get their pool of advertisers in front of this eternally patient, gullible audience.

I totally deserve a Twitter board seat for this.
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