Brian Carroll has a lot of stokes in the fire. Artist, writer, filmmaker, cartoonist. So it stands to reason that I sometimes forget about the excellent work he’s producing over at his comic Instant Classic while I’m not paying attention.

I recently friended Brian through Twitter and it’s been a great way to keep up with what he’s doing. Just recently I combed through his archives, reading his latest batch of comics and they’re excellent.

If you’re not familiar with Instant Classic, I don’t think I could summarize it for you. But if you’re a fan of Multiplex, I think you’ll like it. Brian’s strip isn’t about theater workers, but rather the people who make films and it is a rich treat that should be savored in one sitting.

Go check it out!

Much like everyone else tenaciously related to movies and Hollywood, I’ll be live-blogging during the Oscars tonight using Twitter.

If you’d like to follow along, here’s my Twitter page:

Can you guys help me out?

I’m in a Research class for my Master’s program and our professor put us on the spot to come up with some survey questions she wanted us to ask around campus.

We were supposed to do it tonight, but she’s sick with the flu. Only downside is she still wants survey results for next week to keep us on track! So I came up with the idea to do a Survey Monkey poll.

Can you take 2 minutes to fill out this 4 question survey about Twitter? We’re pretty much looking for a level of awareness. Nothing complicated. No essay questions.

It would really blow her mind if we got a lot of respondents on this. Plus, it’ll make me look good. It won’t take much time, I promise.

And I appreciate your help!

I almost forgot, but I wanted to give partial credit the joke in today’s comic to Steve Napierski from Dueling Analogs. I’d promise I’d give him credit and a link and didn’t want to leave him hanging.

Last night I was facing a little writer’s block and mentioned it on my Twitter page. A lot of people wrote back with great ideas, but Steve suggested “A Mickey Mousetatorship” and that got the wheels turning.

So thanks to Steve and all the other Twitter followers who helped me dislodge my writers block! The instant feedback was very helpful!

I just wanted to collect some feedback on something site-related I’m toying with.

Under the comic, there is a link to the ShareThis! application that, on rollover, reveals dozens of links to different social bookmarking sites.

The other day I stumbled onto the Sociable plugin and really liked the way that it displayed the icons of the social bookmarking sites I choose.

My main problem with their plugin is the coding. Specifically the CSS. I want to put text around it to kind of explain what all these little images are doing there (“Bookmark this comic!”) but the way the code is written, it won’t let me.

At this point, I’m afraid I’m overthinking it.

So let me as you this: Does there need to be any text on the page explaining what those icons are for? Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit and the like? Or is it safe to assume that if people see those icons and the like the comic enough to bookmark it, they will?

I’m trying to get a sense of how you guys use these social bookmarking plugins (if it all) because I want to make it as easy for you as possible to help share Theater Hopper with others.

Right now I have a sneaking suspicion that the ShareThis! plugin I’m currently using is forcing you to jump through hoops by clicking on the link, then hunting for the social bookmarking service you want versus seeing the icon for that service front and center, clicking on it and getting it done.

What do you think? I could really use your perspective.

Because I lead a rich and satisfying life, I was casually looking at the people who are currently following my Twitter account and was surprised to see a picture of Katherine Heigl floating in the list of avatars.

Thinking it was a Heigl super-fan who was now stalking me using Twitter, I investigated further to discover that it was actually an account created for Abby Richter – the fictional character Heigl plays in The Ugly Truth.

Reading some of the tweets, I could see that “Abby” was having a contentious back-and-forth with one Chad Meister. That’s right – the character in played by Gerard Butler in the same movie.

Now I totally understand using social media to help promote stuff and realize that most likely it’s some intern at Sony Pictures having a conversation with himself. But what I don’t understand are the real-life people who are following this inanity.

Certainly it would be one thing if “Abby” were throwing messages into the digital ether and responding to questions or comments posed by fans of the movie (whoever they might be). But when these two fictional characters are carrying on a conversation with each other, excluding everyone else, you kind of wonder what the point of it is…

I don’t know if this is something worth mentioning or not, but I put a little bit of effort into it yesterday and I want you guys to check it out.

After months of the plain, boring default background Twitter gives you for your account, I decided to put together some custom artwork for my page. I don’t want to say much more than that because I don’t want to ruin the joke. The artwork makes a very specific reference that I think you guys might enjoy.

You can see the new artwork on my Twitter profile at http://twitter.com/tombrazelton

Let me know what you think!