Just to let everybody know, Disney’s UP is now available on DVD & Blu-Ray(in North America)! I really liked this movie and I plan on showing it to my mom immediately. Hopefully I can find a movie rental place that has the 2-disc version(not Redbox, as much as I like them). I wish I had a Blu-Ray player, though, because the Blu-Ray version has a LOT more special features. As of this writing, it only costs US$20 on Amazon.com! SAME AS THE 2-DISC DVD! Yes, let me run out and drop over $100 on either a Blu-Ray player or a drive for my computer(tempting). Hopefully the Blu-Ray extras can be found on YouTube soon.

I couldn’t believe that the Muppets actually did Bohemian Rhapsody, considering it’s a song about a murder, but they pulled it off spectacularly in their typical Muppet fashion. You know right from the start that it will be silly when you see chickens. They also did it justice, and with respect to the original. Before I show you the Muppet version, please acquaint yourself with the original version to properly enjoy the Muppets version:

Nice, huh? Now, feast your eyes and ears on the Muppet version. I love Animal’s part!

I hope this has made your hectic Friday totally awesome. Queen’s video is available on their “Greatest Hits 1″ DVD, with lots of cool features.

So far, I’ve gotten a Yakko bendable figurine and a mix CD of various Christmas songs from one friend. Now’s your chance to give me a Christmas or birthday(Jan 6) present too, if you so choose. How? Oh, I can think of a few ways…

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• Also, there are the Amazon.com ads around the page. Use a faster shipping method to ensure it gets to you before Christmas. If you have get-togethers after Christmas like I do, there might still be time to use super-saver shipping. These affiliate links help support the comic.
  

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• Same with the Project Wonderful ads. If you want to advertise something good, you’re welcome to bid for the advertising space by clicking the link below the ad. All proceeds from the advertising space are used to promote the comic even more. I plan on putting out more ads than usual in January.
  

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• Speaking of promoting the site, that’s another gift I’d highly appreciate! You can use the Share button underneath a comic to promote it on sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, you can mention the Kenny Chronicles on Twitter or Facebook, or get even more creative! I’ve gotten visits thanks to Kenny Chronicles pages being made on TV Tropes and WikiFur. What other sites do I need a presence on? Either make an entry on that site, or let me know if I need to have an official entry somewhere. I’m already on Belfry comics and the sites listed underneath my Twitter widget.
  

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• On Second Life? Kenny Panache will gladly accept gifts of Linden dollars, fun objects, useful scripts(I enjoy building stuff) or cool landmarks(my profile picks show where I frequent already). I already have lots of the common freebies, but I’m still building my inventory.
  

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• Also, fan art makes for a nice gift this time of year!

I may not be drawing comics on Thursdays this month(sigh, yes I do draw them the same day as the update, blegh), but it’s time I have a comic update anyway. I present to you some of my favorite Christmas 2009 comics drawn by other artists! Click the comic to visit that comic’s site. The first one is in Spanish.

HO, HO HO! MERRY CHRISTMAS! HOOO, HO, HO!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS, CHILDREN! HO, HO, HO, HOOOOO! HO, HO, HOOO! HOOOOO, HO, HO!

COULD YOU TELL ME WHAT THE HELL YOU FIND SO FUNNY? ho…

Click here to see several more, in English!

I’ve added an Amazon MP3 widget to the sidebar and am having trouble thinking of songs/artists to put in there. I’m thinking music that Kenny would listen to in a dance club while flinging glow sticks all about. Also, funny music. I do have Weird Al on there, but he seems way too obvious. The only Weird Al I’ll feature is his latest albums, in case people are unaware of it. I don’t listen to much music, and when I do, the DJ isn’t saying who or what it was I just listened to. That makes this choosing process difficult.

So; fast, energetic, happy, maybe funny. English optional. I found Leone Di Lernia(Italian) on Amazon, but I don’t recognize any of the songs that were listed. I also found “Chicken Techno“, which is dance music that features clucks and crowing. It sounds good. Especially as an alarm clock(yes, an alarm cluck). Lastly, I also have “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas. I’m sure some are tired of its constant airplay, but I like it. It helps that I don’t listen to the teenager radio station very often.

Who/what else should I consider for the widget?

Today starts a new feature on the Kenny Chronicles: Link of the week. Every Friday from now until whenever, I’ll be linking to a comic that I follow. I’ll be going in nearly alphabetical order, and I will only link to comics that update at least once a week. There will be a few exceptions, since I’m making my own rules.

Today will be an exception to a couple rules. Today I’d like to point your attention to Comicraft, who are TODAY ONLY(all time zones) selling all their fonts for US$20.10 each in celebration of the new year. Even one that is normally US$395! The font I use in my comic was bought in last year’s New Years sale for $20.09 and is named “¡Los Vampiros!”. I bought the International version that is normally $99. Seriously, choose the International font if you use this sale, it costs the same and has ALL the accent marks and upside-down punctuation you could ever need. Comicraft has a LOT of great fonts for every purpose. For more information on the sale, click here.

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And, I can’t mention Comicraft without mentioning Blambot, another font provider for cartoonists and illustrators. They have a wide variety of free fonts every day(generally without international letters), and their pay fonts are usually $US20. Most webcartoonists get their fonts here.

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If you want to be more unique(some fonts get over-used, after all), I recommend Comicraft‘s sale. If you want a good font for free or when Comicraft isn’t doing their January 1st sale, I recommend Blambot.

In tweaking the New Readers page(link at the top), I had to find a good spot to suggest people to start at, because I don’t want to recommend new readers to read through the failed experiment that was Doggone Dailies 2008(Colored lines on black, all done in 1 day). Well, I chose to start it just before Kenny & Funky’s rivalry starts. This is where the story really starts. There weren’t any storylines before this that affect the overall story, and nobody’s first comics are ever their greatest(unless they were a 1-hit wonder). So, I skipped over all the one-shot gags and started it on page 6 of the archives(and changed the archive pages to show 11 comics per page so it would start on a good comic). This is when I realized that the comic that guided the overall story in the direction it went… was inspired by a Garfield comic, where Jon mentioned his cousin Kenny.

Spoilers below, if you haven’t read the archive yet(oh, and above, when I say that Funky dies):
See, this comic led the story where Kenny meets Yay Fox. Soon after, Funky covertly records Kenny and Yay having sex in a dumpster. Kenny & Funky are enemies ever since that moment. Eventually, Kenny gets fed up with Funky and tries to kill him, but should have read “Murder For Dummies” first. This opened up a perfect chance for me to kill off Funky, make it OBVIOUS to characters that it was Kenny(even though it was a feral cat combined with Funky’s bad judgement), and for Kenny to inherit a cool robot with a… Funky history.

All this started with a parody of a Garfield comic.

Sure, I had always intended on Funky being the antagonist, but I had no idea if he would ever die in-comic until the story went there. If you want to see what I’m talking about, click here for the comics I believe new readers should start on.

Every Friday, I’m posting links to my favorite webcomics, and since I’m going alphabetically, that means the first comic to get a recommendation from me is Bear Nuts, by Alison Acton.

These bears live at the Discount Zoo and get gawked at, have stuff thrown at them by kids, and all around have no privacy. Well, they have their cave with their stolen plasma TV, couch, private bath and all the amenities, but it’s still humiliating. This character-driven story follows the lives of (in order of picture) Death Bear, Crack Bear, Gimpy Bear, Evil Bear, Prozac Bear(let’s hope there aren’t any trademark suits in Alison’s future), Nerd Bear, Tanked Bear, Gay Bear, and Lech Bear. It’s cute, very professionally-drawn(great expressions!), and has entertaining storylines. As you can tell from the picture, it’s not a kids comic(PG, maybe PG-13), and the first comic makes it clear what age-appropriateness to expect(okay, PG-13). I had the same tactic with my first Kenny Chronicles comic. It’s clear what Gimpy’s hobbies are between comics, and Tanked is always drunk. The character dynamics work well against each other. Evil Bear has horns! Death Bear can kill with a touch. Prozac Bear… well, just make sure his meds don’t run out.

Bear Nuts is the reason I’ve started offering vote incentives, too. They have a new vote incentive with each comic, and it’s gotten them VERY high up on the TopWebComics ranking(having a great comic helps too). I’ve gotten some traffic via TopWebComics, and I’ve started having some behind-the-scenes stuff to share(pics of the full 3D models used in recent comics), so I’m on board with the vote incentive idea. I already have a buffer building for them, too! WOW, A BUFFER!!!

Bear Nuts can be seen at www.bearnutscomic.com

World-traveler and cartoonist Ryan Estrada created a comic about a werewolf(She’s the one on the left), but this story occurs BETWEEN full moons. The comic makes great use of situational comedy, showing the guy bringing a girlfriend home so she can meet the parents, who seem very disapproving of her being a werewolf. The comic is an 8-page complete story, so don’t worry about it taking much of your time.

Here’s the big news, though: the comic is being turned into a movie! Ryan and his production team are independently creating it, and they need your help. If you help fund part of the movie, you can get anywhere from a mention in the film credits to a cameo, all the way up to having the world premiere right in your living room. There’s even an option to have your DOG featured in the movie, since the main character is a professional dog-walker.

I really want to see this movie finished. Ryan has done animation before, and has drawn comics for a significant portion of his life. He has the artistic chops to do this. If you contribute, tell them you heard about it here and a portion will be contributed to Kenny Chronicles as well! In fact, if this post leads you to get mauled by a werewolf, I’ll also contribute to have my name listed in the credits.

Whether you pay to have a cameo shot or not, read the comic. The link is right in their sidebar. I wouldn’t be making this post if there wasn’t a funny comic to link to. It’s worth reading.

www.TheKindYouDontTakeHomeToMother.com

This week, I’d like to share with you: Sasquatch. Or the yeti. Whatever you call him, also call him Charles Christopher because that’s his name.

Charles Christopher is a BEAUTIFULLY-drawn comic by Karl Kerschl(as if you couldn’t tell from the image), who happens to be a professional cartoonist(obvious in his art). He’s worked on such comics as Superman, Teen Titans, and The Flash! The art is both immersive and dynamic. The humor is silly and charming.

The story mostly focuses on Charles, although it bounces around to the various creatures of Cedar Forest. The skunks and the raccoons have been my favorite characters so far. Karl mixes very expressive, human-like expressions with realistically-drawn forest critters as if they’ve always talked like that. The skunks’ trademark thumbs-up always makes me giggle. Oh, and otters. There’s a storyline with otters!
But, it’s not all giggles and drunk sparrows. There are some serious storylines in there, mostly focusing on Vivol, the former circus bear that is now a respected resident of the forest. I personally prefer when the stories are funny, but the occasional character-building gives a lot more depth to the experience. These are characters that people care about, and the comments certainly back that statement up strongly. I’ve never seen a cheery sidekick character get so much response as Townsen.

The following strip, which is from my birthday, represents the comic pretty well:

Go read the comic at www.abominable.cc! I highly recommend starting at the beginning. The latest comic has humans speaking, which is downright out of the ordinary for this comic, hence the sample strip above. The comic updates every Wednesday.

What’s that new widget in my sidebar…
Alert the zeppelins, for Kenny Chronicles now has a fan page on Facebook! My initial plans are to use it as an archive for the vote incentives, as well as alerting you to new comics as they’re posted. I hope this will be a good playground for all of you critters enjoying my glorious comic. Shout on the wall, post related pictures in the photo album, gab on the discussion boards, and share with your friends! I want to see what this Facebook group’s potential is.

Come on over and have some fun.  *http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kenny-Chronicles/444529845636*