How far ahead do I plan things? Well, actually, Ook Island was a one-off story when I wrote it on March 9, 2006. It wasn’t until early in 2010(Kenny Chronicles started April 2008) when I realized that this story could be incorporated with my sequel idea of two governments sharing the same property(which dates back to October 2009 at the LATEST). The name of the island was inspired by the local “Cook Street” sign being obstructed by a light pole. That’s right, the name came before the monkeys.

The story has changed a little over the years, but that’s expected to happen. I don’t know for sure how long the monkeys and cats have been on the island, but I know it’s not as long as this story says. Until maybe mid-2011, it was planned to be a real dirt-and-rock island, and judging by this story also bigger. Too many wolves for such a small area.

Here’s the original story, as posted on LiveJournal on May 9, 2006(copyright is the only edit):

The year “15(TAR)” refers to it being 15 years after the first Tarneki was created. They were to have their own calendar based on that. It also means 15 years in the future. This was back when the calendar was always moving, so in 2006, Ook Island would have been established in 2021, but in 2026 if read today. But it doesn’t matter, because this story isn’t canon, it’s just the inspiration for the current version.

The wolf and sign were drawn on paper, then the inks were overlayed on this.

 (original Livejournal post from 2006)

Special features will update on Monday and Thursday for the rest of the year. I’d say I have enough content to do that.

In March(according to my backups) or February(judging by an early-March story arc being scheduled for after April 1st & the fact that I changed Kenny’s fate in February), I laid out the plot for the rest of the year. In this blog post, I will reveal my private notes on what was to happen and when it was to happen. There are even ideas that never happened for one reason or another. First, I will show you the oldest copy of my plans, from March 27th. Considering this is the date given by Google Docs, and I originally wrote it using OpenOffice, I’d say this version is older than that. It’s just when I moved it to Google Docs so I can edit it anywhere, like on my iPhone.

First, here’s the original layout of the events from March-November with notes on stuff that happened before, with my notes in parenthesis…

On June 16th, 2008, I started hiding an X in every comic. Why? Well, before Kenny Chronicles started, I was also considering making a puzzle book where you have to find a little X in a complex scene. This was inspired by the image to the right(or above, if you’re reading this in an rss reader that ignores positioning), an image that has been around the web for a while. The puzzle book idea quickly fell by the wayside.

Then 3.5 months into the comic, I decided to hide 8 ninjas in a comic because that’s what ninjas do. I figured that if I am hiding things all over a comic, I might as well throw in one more thing to find.

My comics at that time often used cross-hatching, so that made it fairly easy to camouflage the X in with the lines, and I decided to make the hidden X a regular thing. I always used the exact same size, color and font for the X so there would be no mistaking if you found the X or not, although it kinda got distorted in the next comic(bottome of the exclamation points), then shrunk in the comic after that(dead guy’s eye), and the Doggone Dailies Of Summer that year changed the colors to match the lines(The title image at the beginning of the Doggone Dailies doesn’t have one because I didn’t consider it a comic). I tried to hide it in places where your eyes would either never focus on or where it matches some intersecting lines. I never made mention of it, I wanted readers to discover it on their own. I’ve been hiding an X in every single comic since then.

It got harder to hide those X’s once I switched to 3D backgrounds(they kinda rely on cross-hatching and inked backgrounds), but I wanted to keep consistent with it. The hidden X’s are yet another reason to start fresh with a new comic. I can change anything I want because it’s an entirely different archive.

While I’m sure others have noticed little X’s here and there, the first time anybody actually mentioned it was on July 20th, 2011… just over 3 years later. The honor goes to Ghost_of_StarmanDX on FurAffinity, who apparently is also JA_of_MN here on the Kenny comments. Ghost made the comment on July 18th’s comic over on FurAffinity here, then commented about it on the next comic a day later here on kennychronicles.com. The only other person to mention it was Miles, who commented on JA’s comment.

I’ve been waiting a long time to mention those X’s, and now that you know about them, you can go back through the archives and try to find them ALL!…… if you’re a masochist. Seriously, don’t try to find them all. It would be too frustrating and you can’t even brag about it in the comments because the comments close automatically on old comics. Just be on the lookout for them the next time you do browse the archives and revel in the math-geekiness of it all. You found X.

If you read through the entirety of my last post, this won’t be any new information, but I know a lot of you would have skipped a large portion of it because it was such a long entry. So here it is.

If Death got pregnant in July, and the comic progressed at the same speed as real-life time, they’d be finding out the gender of the baby in December, unless some new technology will be able to tell the gender earlier, like by reading the chromosomes, which is possible. So congratulations, Kenny and Death, it’ll be a GIRL! I still haven’t started designing her yet, especially because merging a fox(with some feline DNA) with a lemming(with a large amount of baboon DNA) is tricky. Which chromosomes will be dominant? What color is her fur? How big will her ears be? I still have no idea.

I’ve also made no progress in updating the 3D model. After the ferrets and lemmings move in, they will make several changes. I have a placeholder for the ferret government’s tower there, but the shape is all I have. I was hoping to have some in-progress pictures to share with you. I hope I can get some work done on those this weekend, but I DID take December off because I’m just too busy, so we’ll see. I don’t know what I’ll have to share on Monday yet. One of the things I’ve been filling my time with is simply catching up on things like reading comics. I subscribe to too many comics and have been a few weeks behind for too long. I read some Thanksgiving comics last night. I’m also a couple weeks behind on watching My Little Pony.

Now one more thing: Does anybody have any questions about the comic now that it’s ended? Any loose ends? With the comic finished, and the next comic trying to be self-contained without requiring having read Kenny Chronicles, I believe I’ve wrapped things up nicely, but a cartoonist is often lousy at seeing things from the readers’ point of view. I’ll try not to give any spoilers to Ferrets Vs Lemmings, but I might answer some questions about that as well.

Let’s see, what else have I been meaning to mention?

Well, something that hasn’t been obvious is that all of the comics from August 25th to November 16th happened on the SAME DAY. Yes, I’m including the dream before Kenny woke up. On the same day that Kenny lost his job, Kenny and Death went to Ook Island and Kenny eventually got a new job after being knocked out by falling dodgeballs. He was unemployed for less than a day. The wonders of cartoon time.

This is one of the things that encouraged me to keep the story moving quickly, having one day spread across 2 and a half months.

In Ferrets Vs Lemmings(premiering January 2nd whether I’m ready or not), Funky Skunk’s “ghost”(actually a hallucination when Kenny is stressed or paranoid) will make more appearances. I’ll try to make it clear what he is from the start, since the comic is supposed to stand on its own without having read Kenny Chronicles. I figure there will be some comics where Kenny is talking to him without Funky being visible in the comic, too, kinda like this comic, except not visible to the reader at all.

It’ll be nice starting out with a fresh archive so I can re-introduce characters and technologies that people have forgotten. One of the problems with a large archive is that people either forget or are never introduced to certain things/characters. I was surprised at how many people commented about the wireless energy on Ook Island, considering it’s been mentioned before. I guess batteries are so prevalent that people think that’s how the flying shoes are getting their power, when in fact if you fly a few meters away from your ship, you’ll fall straight into the ocean. Tarneki Tech added some safeguards in their second generation of flying shoes after losing some of their customer base and you’ll notice in Ferrets Vs Lemmings that the first generation flying shoes(like Kenny currently has) will be banned on Ook Island without some wearable wireless power.

For Christmas, I’d like to share this Kenny Chronicles comic from 2009 that features a medley of Christmas songs. It was after Funky Skunk knocked Kenny’s tooth out with a dodgeball & before Kenny got it fixed. I’ve enlarged it, too, just because.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZllHl0auqAw

Me singing about how Jingle Bells really wasn’t intended as a Christmas song. It’s really more of a snowy-weather song.

In one week, Ferrets Vs Lemmings premiers. Are you ready? I’m not, heh. This will be a busy week for me.

It wasn’t until Christmas Day that I even thought of giving this little aye-aye his own merchandise, but really, it HAS to be on a shirt, or a mug, or an iPhone case. If you go to the mug listing, you can even opt to get it on a stein!

I noticed that while I have told you that there WILL be comics at FerretsVsLemmings.com, I haven’t told you that there ARE NOW comics at FerretsVsLemmings.com!

So this is your official notice. The sequel to Kenny Chronicles has begun! Check out Ferrets Vs Lemmings NOW!