You Have A Blog?

I'll preface this by saying that I'm from Silicon Valley. I've worked at the "Big C" for 9 years, so I know all about the power of the Internet. How it's capable of breaching borders, both geographically and intellectually. Breaking down the walls of isolation and forever changing the communication paradigm. An enabler. Empowerment. Let Freedom Ring and all. Roger that.

I guess until this week it was never personalized for me. Two things happened which really hit home. This double tap shook me and prompted this little experiment. Incident One, we'll call it, was finding an online review of a comic book I'd written - The Mercy Killing - along with inker/artist pal Tim Goodyear. Kevin over at Optical Sloth gave us a favorable review and is generally a swell guy, promoting small press and indy material. The thing is, Kevin is in Chicago. We're in California. I've never met Kevin. We played a quick game of Kevin Bacon to determine how he was able to get his hands on our book, tracing it from various distributors, to local shops, into his hands, and onto the web. Pretty cool. Wouldn't have been possible otherwise.

Incident Two involved a review I did of the Slave Labor Graphics book Street Angel, by Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca over at Big Brother Dan's site: www.wackyhijinx.com, the web footprint of the brick-and-mortar Wacky Hijinx Comics in San Jose. I dug this book. I really dug the other work that the duo has done: Afrodisiac. These pieces appeared in Project: Superior and the 2005 SPX Anthology book. Anyway... Jim saw my review, sent me a note to say thank you, and even included a jpg of a commissioned piece he'd done. Again, generally a swell guy. Sense of community. But more importantly, someone is watching.

So yeah, I have a blog. It all clicked. We got the tools. We got the audience. Do we have the talent? Let's find out. Welcome to 13 Minutes! Mostly reviews of the best comics I've found. Occasional articles on the industry. Pop culture tidbits. Rare special events and promotions. Your ambassador to one of only two art forms that originated in America, the comic book (second only to Jazz). Stay tuned, I'm here all night.