Tagged: Birthday

Happy Birthday, Brian Alvey

Happy Birthday, Brian Alvey

On this day in 1970, Brian Alvey was born in Falls Church, Virginia. After a misspent youth working for professional gamblers, he straightened up and started building web sites in the early days of the World Wide Web, performing back-end wizardy for everybody from Business Week and TV Guide to e-publishing pioneer BiblioBytes. Not content with computer work, he was also the art director for Cybersurfer magazine and The Silicon Alley Reporter.

Most recently, he cofounded Weblogs Inc., the folks behind Engadget, Cinematical, and TMZ.com; he was the chief architect of Netscape; and he’s started up a little company called CrowdFusion which does all sorts of neat stuff. And with all of that, he’s still found time to help run ComicMix.

Happy birthday to him and to his lovely wife Niki, who shares a birthday with him as they share so many other things.

ComicMix Quick Picks – March 2, 2009

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss! Courtesy of Dr. Seuss EnterprisesToday’s list of quick items:

  • Happy birthday to Theodore Geisel. And happy birthday to my dad. No, my dad is not Dr. Seuss.
     
  • From an article in the Guardian: "Americans already consume vastly more paper than any other country — about three times more per person than the average European, and 100 times more than the average person in China. Barely a third of the paper products sold in America are from recycled sources — most of it comes from virgin forests." In other words, yet another pressure on comics.
     
  • Drew Barrymore to Direct Third Twilight?
     
  • Groening’s “Life In Hell” In Trouble? | Comic Book Junction

Anything else? Consider this an open thread.

Happy birthday, Valerie D’Orazio!

Happy birthday, Valerie D’Orazio!

A happy birthday to the Occasional Superheroine and the President of Friends of Lulu herself, Valerie D’Orazio!

(No, we’re not telling you how old she is. She is timelessly and eternally young– in other words, younger than all the principals of ComicMix. And much cuter than Mike Gold.)

While we wait for Cloak and Dagger to come out, go read her current piece on the Doomsday scenario in comics distribution. And let her know we said hi.

On playing at being DC’s editor-in-chief

On playing at being DC’s editor-in-chief

The Occasional Superheroine herself, Valerie D’Orazio, has an interesting thought experiment going on at her blog:

Play "Fantasy DC EIC" and Redo The DCU!

This is like Fantasy Baseball, but instead of pretending to play a professional sport, you pretend to be the new Editor-In-Chief of the DC Universe.

You come in to the job, and are given carte blanche to totally rearrange the DCU as you see fit. Among your powers:

1. Killing characters and/or bringing them back from the dead.

2. Canceling titles.

3. Starting new titles.

4. Creating events.

5. Hiring talent and editorial.

6. Offering exclusives.

7. Steering the "direction" of characters and books.

8. Creating special projects (movie tie-ins, new initiatives, etc).

My immediate response:

The biggest problems that face DC right now aren’t in Editorial. The structural problems are elsewhere.

Do I get to make changes to other parts of the company as well?

Valerie replied:

If this was real? Probably not. So you have to factor that in.

In a real scenario, any big changes you make to major characters or books or directions have to be signed off on by The Powers That Be.

But isn’t working together fun?

It makes me think that somehow Valerie hasn’t heard the joke:

Q: How many DC Vice-Presidents does it take to change a lightbulb?

Although having worked at DC, she can probably guess the punchline:

(more…)

Happy 86th birthday, Stan Lee!

Happy 86th birthday, Stan Lee!

Happy birthday to Stan the Man! (Geez, I’m not even half his age and I don’t have half his energy. Let this be a lesson to you, kiddies– when you’re writing, stand up while you type. You’ll be in much better shape when you get older.)

Excelsior from all of us true believers! May you keep making cameos in Marvel films for decades to come. And not frozen in ice next to Captain America either.

The Writes Of Spring, by Dennis O’Neil

The Writes Of Spring, by Dennis O’Neil

As I sit down to write this, I’m less than five hours from midnight on March 23rd and so it might be appropriate to wish you a Happy Easter, or Happy Pasha if you’re an Oriental Christian, or Happy Purim. Or maybe I should give a shout-out to Aphrodite, Ashtoreth, Astarté, Demeter, Hathor, Ishtar, Kali, Ostara – all deities who were celebrated around the spring equinox and, as far as my extremely limited and unreliable knowledge goes, all of whom were connected to fertility, which figures: Spring equinox = end of winter = new life = let’s have a party.

Or…let’s let one stand for all and just celebrate the goddess whose name gives the holiday it’s name: No less an authority than The Venerable Bede, an early Christian scholar, wrote that Easter was named after the Saxon goddess Eostre, and if you can’t trust the Venerable Bede, well…

I like Easter, and tomorrow I may do something celebratory, even if it’s only to walk in the park down the road. (Yeah, us old guys really know how to tear it loose.) It’s a real holiday, as evidenced by all the ways it’s been celebrated over the millennia – see the goddess list above – and I think that means that it acknowledges and celebrates something deep in our collective culture, our life on this planet, probably our genomes. The catalogue of such holidays is short: there’s the various festivals of light that occur around the winter solstice – Merry Christmas, all – and around the fall equinox that generally involve harvests and eating, and Easter, et. al. All happen at seasonal changes and all involve the Basics: birth, death, light, dark, and survival.

You don’t have to believe in the literal truth of a mythology to accept the realities that underlie it.

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Happy Birthday: Liv Marie Alvey

Happy Birthday: Liv Marie Alvey

Liv Marie was born to Brian and Niki Alvey at 3:46 PM today, making this her zeroth birthday. She is 9 pounds 0 ounces and 19.5 inches long. Liv joins two very excited brothers and three doggies.

In case you don’t read the fine print, Brian is co-founder of ComicMix, and we wish the family nothing but the very, very best.

Great way to start off the spring!

Birthday Requests

Birthday Requests

If anybody’s stumped on what to get me for a birthday present, there’s a copy of Marvel Comics #1 up for auction. Only $25k or so.

C’mon. It’s not even in mint condition.

It’s not like I’m asking for uranium or a tank or anything.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Please do not send gifts of uranium ore to ComicMix HQ. Thank you. -RM]

 

On This Day: Lori Lemaris, Norm Breyfogle and Jeff Smith

On This Day: Lori Lemaris, Norm Breyfogle and Jeff Smith

Though the ocean tides play havoc with calendars, today is officially recognized as the birthday of Lori Lemaris, mermaid of Atlantis and one-time girlfriend of Superman. Don’t ask how old she is, though—a lady never reveals, not even a lady fish.

In the “real” world, today is also the birthday of comic book artist Norm Breyfogle and comic book creator Jeff Smith. Both were born in 1960.

Breyfogle is best known for his work on various Batman titles, while Jeff Smith is the creator of the popular Bone comic book series.

Happy birthday, guys!

Happy Birthday, Doug Moench

Happy Birthday, Doug Moench

Moon Knight creator and noted Batman scribe Doug Moench celebrates his birthday today. Moench’s byline has adorned hundreds of issues through the years, including work for DC, Marvel and various other publishers of comics and magazines.

He’s the man who made Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu a hit, and the architect behind many of Batman’s Elseworlds battles with vampires, werewolves and, on one occasion, the creature who gave Ah-nuld a run for his money: the Predator.

A personal favorite of mine, Moench’s run The Spectre was my first introduction to the writer, and I’ve been a fan ever since.

Here at ComicMix, we hope you have a great birthday, Doug!