FIFTEEN YEARS OF HEROPRESS!!!

FIFTEEN YEARS!!!

The observant among you will have spotted there is no arty anniversary poster this year to mark the occasion. 

Jeremy Hawkins

This is because we lost our friend and HeroPress artist, Jeremy Hawkins, to COVID at the start of the year.

Jeremy had provided me with artwork and logos for almost a decade, totally gratis, asking only that I continue to promote his work, websites, T-shirt designs etc

Alex J Cavanaugh is organising an online tribute to Jeremy on February 2.

In light of this tragedy, it's difficult to focus on the idea of 'celebrating' another year of blogging, but - fortuitously - much of the following drivel had been written in advance, because there were lengthy periods during 2021 when I really didn't think the blog would make it to this anniversary.

These last 12 months have been a particularly rough period for HeroPress.

Surprisingly this was not specifically because of the global pandemic; to be honest that probably impacted me less than most as I tend to be a hikikomori anyway and so mingling with the great unwashed masses is rarely on my agenda.

It's more to do with an all-encompassing black fog - a cocktail of general anxieties, imposter syndrome, and health issues (both very real and imagined) - that has ground me down to an apathetic heap who would rather bathe blankly in the calming rays of a TV screen than risk his soul on anything too creative.

Coming off the back of the "great Blogger overhaul" as well, I think this year was the closest HeroPress has come to being yanked off life-support.

Thankfully, despite everything else, I retain a degree of pride in its existence and continue to nurse it along, even when I don't feel the compulsion to post as regularly as I have during my periods of peak blogging.

HeroPress, of course, isn't my first crack at blogging - just my most successful. 

When I first came out of hospital in July 2005, Rachel and I stayed with my parents until I was well enough to be left on my own. 

We then moved in to my small, cold flat in Tunbridge Wells and I occupied my time - while Rachel was at work - with Internet shopping, watching DVDs and this strange new thing called "writing a blog". 

I didn't really know what I was doing and eventually my blog was "terminated" by the net Nazis at Yahoo for unspecified reasons. 

I guess it was because I was reproducing BBC news stories on there, but I could never get an answer from Yahoo and despite removing what I thought were the contentious items my Yahoo account was still axed (taking with it various pictures of our holidays, our engagement etc). 

Some time later I'd finally sold my flat and this seemed like a good time to start a new blog, as I was moving to Rachel's, our wedding was now on the calendar and my life was back on track.

While my new blog more closely resembled the current incarnation of HeroPress, it was also peppered with increasingly "ranty" texts against 'chavs' and noisy neighbours.

Rachel's flat, at that time, being the first floor of an old converted house, had a particularly noisy bloke living downstairs who would play his music at volume 11 all hours of the day, throw drunken parties, argue loudly with his girlfriend and generally live his life with no regard for those around him.

Thankfully he did a midnight bunk one day, without paying his rent, and - barring a few incidents - the new neighbours were much, much better.

In the end, I found the blog wasn't calming me down and distracting me, as it was supposed to, but actually winding me up more... so for the sake of my sanity I called it a day and took a few weeks off to think about what I really wanted my blog to be about.

And, after much pontificating, on January 16, 2007, with a tentative announcement about a play-by-forum roleplaying game I was planning on running, the 'ultimate' HeroPress was born.

That particular game idea came to nowt, but planted the seeds that eventually blossomed into The Tuesday Knights (our regular, monthly, gaming group) in August, 2008.

So, here we are, 15 years later, closing in on 18,000 posts and well over seven million hits.

There are have been hiccups along the way, often self-inflicted (such as several changes of URL and, at one point, a complete name change for the site), but progress has been steadily heading in the right direction for many years now.

Perhaps, one day, I'll eventually settle on a focus for HeroPress, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

Will it be Doctor Who? Who knows???

I suspect my epitaph will read: "He could never make up his mind".

As ever, I'd like to thank my patient wife, Rachel, for continuing to encourage me to keep on blogging, supporting my endeavours, and turning a blind eye to the frequent cosplay picture posts that appear on the site.

This is also a good time to give a shout out to my online peers who help keep me sane and who've looked kindly on this blog in last year or so.

These are people I know I can turn to for inspiration or assistance, people who've never even met me and only know me from my seemingly incoherent and ill-informed ramblings.

Great souls such as:

• Justin Isaac of Halls Of The Nephilim,
• Michel Albert of Siskoid's Blog Of Geekery,
• Jonathan Linneman of Monstrous Matters,
• Charles R. Rutledge of Wellman City Limits,
• Eric Bloat of Bloat Games,
• Adam Dickstein of Barking Alien, 
  
• Ivy Shorts of The Happy Whisk,
• Tim Shorts of Gothridge Manor,
• Stacey Lemmon  of Dr Theda's Crypt,
• Jeff Berry aka Chirine ba Kal of Chirine's Workbench,
• Criag Oxbrow of The Door In Time/The Watch House, 
• Tim Brannan of The Other Side,
• Calvin Heighton of Calvin's Canadian Cave Of Cool,
• Al Bruno III of The Wit And Weirdness Of...,
• Nathan Ward of Nathoelon's Empires,   
• My favourite author, Philip Reeve,
• and Erik, Percy and the other members of the Montreal Area & Friends RPG Group

And thank you all, readers old and new, for ploughing through my nonsense and hopefully popping back on a semi-regular basis.

In the meantime I'd like to encourage you to check out my informal pro-blogging 'campaign', urging you all to Support Your Local Blogger.

I'm not talking about financially (although I'm sure that wouldn't be unwelcome), I mean just letting them know you read what they're putting out.

If you visit a blog, leave a message, a comment. Your words might just encourage that blogger to keep on blogging for another 15 years... or longer...

And let's take a moment to remember the kindness, generosity, and talent of Jeremy Hawkins. 

He will always be missed.