Welcome To The New Comics Alliance

If you're reading this, then I'm pointing out the obvious, but I'll say it anyway: ComicsAlliance has a new look. There are a lot of changes, some great new additions, and one or two regrettable losses, and we figured we'd briefly walk you through it all.

The amount of technical work that's gone into our redesign and migrating every word, image and video from the old content management system of our former owners borders on the absurd and supernatural, but the results are there. We're thrilled to have been able to preserve the old site and move forward with a great design refresh.

Possibly the most significant change, which some of you have already mentioned to us on Twitter, is that ComicsAlliance is now mobile-functional. The new mobile site gives you the same ComicsAlliance content in a clean, concise and easy to use format optimized for your iPhone or Android device. There's also a great text-resizing for easy reading as well as built-in sharing options connected to Facebook and Twitter. You don't need to make any special configurations to access the mobile site. Simply load ComicsAlliance.com on your phone's browser and it works.

I'm not normally one for talking to myself (out loud, at least), but looking at it on my phone last night, alone in my apartment, I audibly shared an, "Ooooh, pretty" remark with no one in particular. When my delivery man showed up with dinner, I showed it to him on my phone, and even he was excited. That, or he was looking for a bigger tip. Either way, it felt good, and I gave him more money. Everybody wins.

We want you to read, enjoy and share our content in whatever way works best for you while providing an experience that's unique to each platform. Please note that our old RSS feed is no more, but at the top of the site is the icon for the new one. Additionally, the ComicsAlliance Tumblr is even more robust than before, with our own Betty Felon curating CA content specifically for the Tumblr crowd and as we speak devising more ways to make the CA Tumblr experience even more distinctive. You may have also noticed a new, more personal flavor to the ComicsAlliance Twitter feed and a renewed dedication to Facebook.

Exploring the site, you'll notice many changes. Our biggest regular features like Best Art Ever, Ask Chris, Bizarro Back Issues and Best Cosplay Ever are now highlighted to the right of the homescreen, making them much easier to find. Categories like News, Opinion and Humor are highlighted at the top, with publishers and imprint links immediately below, offering immediate access to our complete archive of content pertaining to those companies. Articles you love (or hate) are now easier to share on social media via the buttons at the top and bottom of every post (with Tumblr buttons on the way). And, on a personal level, the thing I might be happiest about is the removal of "The Vault," that damned widget we had on the previous site that had not been updated in 17 months. Apparently, the only article from our vault was "The Best Comics of 2011." I hate you, Vault widget. I'm glad you're gone.

And now the unfortunate (depending on who you ask) news. Moving over to the new site architecture, it proved to be technically impossible to rescue the reader comments left on previous site. Over the years, there were a lot of comments on ComicsAlliance. Some were thought provoking, many were funny, and, because it's the Internet, some were what I'll simply call "unnecessary." But they were all a part of the site. Specifically, I'm very sorry we weren't able to hold onto the hundreds of comments people left while CA was down (and we'll have more information about the teaser campaign you supported so enthusiastically in a later post). It meant more to all of us, on a number of levels, than I could probably say. The best we can do is work even harder to make up for losing all of your remarks. And by that, I mean we'll make Sims review more movies he hates.

The new ComicsAlliance is the result of a close collaboration between myself, Andy Khouri, Caleb Goellner and our design and tech teams at Townsquare Media. We're really pleased with how the new look has worked out, and hope you are as well. However, it's an ongoing process -- we'll still be making some minor changes as we go. We welcome your feedback in the comments sections below every post, which is now based on Facebook integration; making it easier for you to interact with CA and easier for us to rule with an iron fist moderate responsibly.

More than anything, I really want to stress that, even though the look of the site has changed, the tone and mission have not. It's the same staff, the same voices, the same goal. Chris still loves Batman, Caleb still loves toys (and pugs), Andy's aesthetic tastes still drives Best Art Ever, Andrew's accent is still glorious, and I still go on long rants about how much I love Steve Gerber. We're the same folks, and even if it looks different, this is the same site.

Thanks for sticking with us.