When Celebrities Become Your Friends...

So guess what!  I'm personally acquainted with many, MANY International quartet gold medalist within the barbershop harmony society.  I mean, good grief, I sing in a chorus that has five of them!  But if I were to tell you there names, or even simply just tell you this fact, you'd all just roll your eyes and sarcastically say "right Jimmy, that's SSOOOO awesome."  And even though I think it's the coolest thing in the world, I recognize not everyone else does.

Back in the early part of 2009 I started my comic book blog, The Heretics Blog, which only had one follower for almost 2 months...me.  But as time progressed, I began getting more and more followers.  I currently have 37 people following my blog, and according to the Comic Blog Elite, I'm averaging almost 200 hits a day, ranking number 45th out of 300 sites as of 9:20 AM today.  When I first started that blog, I paid very little attention to my grammer because I simply wanted to write about what interested me - never really thinking that anyone would actually go visit the site.

What does the 2nd paragraph have to do with the first you ask? Well recently I've had the pleasure of being personally contacted by many different artists and writers within the comic book field.  Two in particular would be Anthony Del Col from the incredibly creative comic book series "Kill Shakespeare," and Chandra Free who did both the art and writing for her self made graphic novel "The God Machine."   I've had other writers and artist contact me via e-mail or through my blog, but these two excited me the most. 

It's almost a monthly occurrence, and rapidly becoming more frequent, where some aspiring comic book creator contacts me in hopes that I will review or post information about the graphic novel.  Ryan Colucci wrote me about reviewing his graphic novel, Habor Moon, and Chloe Thulstrup, who I'm not sure what exactly she is the creator of, but contacted me to promote a project titled "The Guardian Project."

The best part about having a blog that gets so many hits is...I get FREE STUFF because of it!  Del Col sends out free PDF's to many bloggers of Kill Shakespeare almost a week before it hits the comic book stores!  Colucci mailed me his Harbor Moon graphic novel MONTHS in advance!  I've also received a few other free graphic novels from independent writers and artists who just want to get their stuff out there.  I love every minute of it.  I like reading, and being able to get my hands on free literature is fine by me!

I know it's nerdy, but I don't care!  I think it's cool that these people contact me personally and send me free books because of it.  So, if any other comic writers and artists want to get their stuff reviewed, you are always more than welcome to send it my way! I will be happy to oblige.  I want my blog to get even more hits than it has already, so any help from you guys would be helpful too.