With this same idea in mind, it looks like Planet Ozh has released the Liz Strauss comment counter WordPress plugin.    This WordPress plugin was designed to display your blogs comment count proudly.    I think this plugin is a great way to show that your blog has a lot of conversations.

Ozh lists the following features:

• Performance: the plugin generates a static image every time a comment is left (or an admin moderates one). The benefit is that, when showing the badge, nothing dynamic is generated on the fly by the webserver.
• Failover: if for some reason your server was not able to generate a static image (write permissions or whatever) the plugin falls back to generating the badge on the fly, so you always have something to show.
• Minimal overhead: state of the art code that loads only when needed, and the plugin adds a grand total of zero extra database query.
• Compatibility: the admin interface either runs as a widget (with no extra “Settings” page created) or as a traditional plugin.
• Flexibility: just like your Feedburner badge, except there’s more options!
• Neat interface: one click color presets, killer Farbtastic color picker, and cute FamFamFam icons
• Ready for translation: polyglots, a .pot file is included. If you happen to translate the plugin, be sure to send me your work so I can include it in the archive! (Please send your .mo and .po files to ozh at planetozh dot com)
• Fun: well yes, it’s just fun to show how many comments you have

So basically it is widget ready and you can pick a color to match your blog.   You can download the plugin here.   Enjoy!