Shotgun Reviews: A Welcome
I can hear it now. Some of you are saying, “How the hell did I get here?” Some are saying, “Why does Sparkshooter link here?” And others are saying, “Not this shit again.” Well, those are all fair points I suppose. Whatever the reason, whether you remember or whether you’re new, welcome to ShotgunReviews.com.
Who the Hell are These People?
My name is Troy Brownfield. In 1998, after several years writing for my high school and college papers, booking a ton of musical festivals and one-off shows, and getting a job in Indianapolis, I started writing for Comic Kingdom, the website of my friend Nick Jankowski. I put together two columns: The Big Question, which was an interview column wherein the subject would answer only one, frequently complex, question. The other column was based on one of my regular college paper concepts. I called it Shotgun Reviews because it spread out and covered a wide area. I usually would throw in a movie, a comic, and a CD, maybe a TV show or something else. As things kept rolling, I thought that maybe I should just put together my own site, maybe with the aim of giving other aspiring writers a house.
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| Troy and Shawn in 2004 |
In June 1999, with the help of original webmaster Shawn Delaney, that’s exactly what I did. And really, it went pretty well. The site kind of took off, more or less, and before we knew it, we were putting up booths at Wizard World shows, getting quoted on things like volumes of “Dragonball Z”, doing radio and TV appearances (ah, the great Jordana Green crowning) and generally having a great freaking time.
One of the great things about the site was the flexibility it gave everyone. If you were into something, you could build on it. Russ branched out and became the ring announcer for WCWO in Indianapolis. Jonathan Birdsong and Oseye Boyd put together a great crew of reviewers in the Lyrical Lounge section. Shawn, always a musician, played in local bands like The Shivers and Samsell, and I brought back my old booking skills by having the site sponsor or host package shows with Indy indie bands. And that was just the tip.
My own writing stretched out, and I started contributing to places like Comicon.com’s The Pulse and Newtype USA magazine. I wound up writing for Newtype more or less after meeting Ken Wiatrek of ADV in Chicago, and he was one of the forces behind my becoming acquainted with Corey Henson. Corey was one of the early “second wave” Shotgun gang, along with The Rev. OJ Flow, whom I first “met” (along with Jim Beard) on the DC Direct boards at DCComics.com. OJ and Corey would soon join me in another crazy endeavor.
