WordPress Can’t Find Custom Comments Function

I’m trying to write a function that will allow me more control over the display of comments on a post page. However I’m confused about how to set it up so WordPress can use it. right now I get the following error:

Warning: call_user_func() expects parameter 1 to be a valid callback,
function ‘custom_comments()’ not found or invalid function name in
/Users/Brent/Desktop/Web Design/WP
Playground/wordpress/wp-includes/comment-template.php on line 1711

Read More

• Get rid of this Strict Standards warning
• WooCommerce: get_current_screen not working with multi language
• Can’t login on WordPress

Here is the call to the function:

<div class="comment-list">
    <?php
    wp_list_comments('type=comment&callback=custom_comments()');
    ?>
</div><!-- .comment-list -->

And here is what that section of my functions.php file looks like:

add_action('load_comments', 'custom_comments');

function custom_comments($comment, $args, $depth) {
    $GLOBALS['comment'] = $comment;
    ?>

        <li <?php comment_class(); ?> id="li-comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">

            <div class="comment-intro">
                <em>commented on</em> 
                <a class="comment-permalink" href="<?php echo htmlspecialchars(get_comment_link($comment->comment_ID)) ?>"><?php printf(__('%1$s'), get_comment_date(), get_comment_time()) ?></a>
                <em>by</em> 
        <?php printf(__('%s'), get_comment_author_link()) ?>
            </div>

        <?php if ($comment->comment_approved == '0') : ?>
                    <em><php _e('Your comment is awaiting moderation.') ?></em><br />
        <?php endif; ?>

            <?php comment_text(); ?>

            <div class="reply">
        <?php comment_reply_link(array_merge($args, array('depth' => $depth, 'max_depth' => $args['max_depth']))) ?>
            </div>

<?php } ?>

Could anyone tell me what I’m doing wrong here to get this error? I know from my research on this issue that sometimes you need to remove_action from another function that may be conflicting with this function, but I’m not even sure I’m calling this function correctly. Please help, I’m having a hard time finding good resources on how to use a custom comment function.

This is the only good resource I’ve found so I’ve been following this but it doesn’t say anything about the errors: Custom Comments HTML Output

When I googled the error I found this page slightly helpful, but I haven’t been able to identify the culprit function: wordpress.org

I’ve checked out a few other questions on here but they mostly seem to be asking about other specific problems. Help is greatly GREATLY appreciated!