Welcome to yet another Update Post, this time for the month of April, specifically the 16th, in the year of 2022 AD. Here on the Eve of Easter, I present to you another bi-monthly update here on the Blog-shaclaypse.
Behold!
KikiBanana.com is Live!
Yep. It's happening. It's actually happening. As in, I've dropped actual money on a third website and domain name for this intellectual property of mine (for lack of a better term), so it'll have a platform all its own to become whatever in the hell it decides to ultimately become.
Now, as of this blog post, there's nothing really there save for a "Coming Soon" splash page, as this is a very recent development, but content will be coming to it, and soon.
Like I mentioned in the last update, the Kiki Banana web comic is still happening, and this is more evidence of it's eventual manifestation. Although, I never made any mention of a separate website for it, implying I would either put it up here and / or some other third party web comic hosting site. That's because, at the time, I didn't have any plans for a separate website. Now, however, well... allow me to elaborate a little on why I made this decision.
Prognosis Indicates Further Growth
Firstly, when I applied a little Depth of Vision to this story idea, I could see it branching out into other mediums beyond just a silly little web comic or even a longer-form print comic; I could see animated shorts, little point-and-click adventure games, perhaps even full blown animated series and larger video game projects that further flesh out this weird and wacky world that's been brewing in my head since the tail-end of 2016.
In other words, I could see that this story idea would, if committed to, expand far beyond the confines of a web comic series, and blossom into its own... thing. So, instead of having it as just yet another artwork in my Gallery here on The Bradshacalypse, I decided to allow it its own platform into which it can have the room to further expand.
That is, assuming I do indeed commit to this project; as in, I forgo most of my other projects I have on the back-burner to focus almost exclusively on this singular project until it's reached a satisfactory conclusion, serves its purpose, and/or becomes a kind of self-perpetuating narrative organism of sorts that only requires the odd nudge here and there to keep going. So, now the question is... do I plan to commit to this?
Answer being - Yes! Yes I do. Here's why...
It Ticks All the Boxes for Me
Out of all of my story ideas, I think, thus far, Kiki Banana checks nearly all the boxes as far as what I like in a cartoon story, especially one to create: a batshit insane cartoon world with a nice tropical oceanpunk theme populated with equally batshit insane characters ready to embark on loads of farcical and absurd misadventures, all the while still being a good medium to sneak in some esoteric lessons here and there... yes, really, even something as stupid as this.
New Revelations from Studying the Laws of Success
The following is going to seem at first like some non-sequitur discourse in something altogether different from what I was just talking about, but bear with me a moment, I swear it'll tie right back in (and pay attention, as you can learn from this; consider it a cautionary tale).
For the past year or so, I've been obsessively studying what I will henceforth refer to as the "Laws of Success", meaning - sets of behaviors and mindsets that have a greater tendency to result in successful endeavors that, unfortunately, most people tend to lack, resulting in a mostly unfulfilled life... myself included, until now.
Without going into much detail, I'm currently 31 years old, just old enough not to be considered "young" anymore. For the past twelve years or so, I've been trying and trying to get something off the ground in terms of a creative endeavor; a comic, animation, video game, book, anything really, and I can't say that I've been particularly successful. It's a hard thing to admit, but regardless, it's true.
During my early to mid twenties, I always thought that I would have something going by now, but alas, I'm more or less in the same position that I was back then; nothing much to show for, as far as a completed work, that is.
To be fare, though, that time wasn't entirely wasted, seeing as I did utilize that time to hone my skills to the point where they are now, so that's how I like to re-frame it. But I digress.
In October of 2020, I humbled myself to the point where I decided to listen to a little fourteen CD audio course called Your Wish is Your Command by the now-disgraced infomercial salesman Kevin Trudeau. I had heard of him first way back in 2016 or so in a presentation by one Jay Parker, a satanic ritual survivor who sited this program, among others, as helping him heal from his horrific experiences growing up in a satanic Illuminati family, as he puts it. For whatever reason, it didn't quite click with me then, didn't get my attention, until flash-forward almost half a decade later when I found the program in its entirety online, and decided to listen to it.
When I first listened to it, a lot of it sounded like a bunch of hokey Law of Attraction nonsense, which I promptly dismissed at first, but Kevin managed to explain it in such a way that was surprisingly congruent with most everything I had gathered up until then as far as ontological understanding of existence goes, from the digital nature of Consciousness and Reality a la Tom Campbell's My Big TOE, to all of the ancient occult teachings I'd studied, such as those in the Kybalion. It just made too much sense to be utter nonsense.
Before, I had thought that the Law of Attraction was some New Age bullshit that was merely a means to fool people into inaction, by convincing them they can just sit and meditate about a new car and expect it to come driving up into their garage, for example. Funnily enough, Kevin mocks this notion and shows that there's much more to it than that.
To boil it all down, the gist of it all is that Success, whatever your criteria are for it (happiness, fulfilled purpose, abundant wealth, attainment of love, etc.), all begins with Thought. Earl Nightingale sums it up quite succinctly in his audio program The Strangest Secret -
"You become what you think about."
What had I been thinking about this whole time? When I asked myself this question, I realized that I had been thinking thoughts that were in my disservice -
Thoughts mired in doubt, in utter faithlessness in my abilities...
Thoughts completely unfocused, my attention scattered amongst a myriad of potentialities, not fully committing to any of them...
Thoughts allowed to be influenced by those around me, also faithless and unfocused, from faithless and unfocused people...
Negative, self-defeating Thoughts I unknowingly allowed to creep into my mind, thoughts I could not even say were my own...
Absolutely none of these Thoughts were at all conducive to my future Success. This is why, after over a decade of piss-poor attempts at things, none have yielded any real fruits.
For the longest time now, I had been doing what Kevin Trudeau calls the "Poke-It-With-A-Stick Method", where you have a project and just kind of... poke it occasionally to see if it moves, to see if it yields any results. This is a recipe for failure, and it's what I've been doing more or less this whole time.
What I've learned from my study of these Laws of Success is the importance of Definiteness of Purpose; having a singular Chief Aim to obsessively strive for. Another recipe for failure akin to the aforementioned one is the "Shotgun Approach", in which one throws ideas at the wall in hopes that one is bound to stick. This, too, had been a strategy of mine, and look what I have to show for it! ... Nothing!
All one really needs to succeed at any endeavor is to know for absolute certain exactly and definitively what it is one wants to do, and get a burning desire to see it done. That's it! While there are innumerable nuances to this notion, that's really the meat and potatoes of it; know what you want, and want it so much you will stop at nothing to get it such that no obstacle or stumbling block will keep you from it. Sounds easy, almost deceptively so, but how many people know exactly what they want? And if they do, how many people want it that badly?
I know I sure didn't... not until very recently that is.
And this has to do with the Kiki Banana website... how, exactly?
All of that I told you about the Laws of Success, that's why I'm making this into an entire website - I'm going all in on this project, and I'm not going to stop until I see the results I want to see! Had I merely designated this web comic as just another thing to add to my Gallery, would I have not put enough time, attention, and energy into it as I would if I were to commit it to its own media platform, into which it could expand? It would've just become yet another half-assed bit of content that no one would end up caring about ultimately, myself included.
That's not good enough anymore.
How do I expect anyone else to care about something of mine when I myself seem to show very little care for it? By going all in like this, I hope to mitigate and circumvent audience apathy, as well as give the thing the care and attention it deserves so it can become something truly special. That's my current thinking behind it, anyway.
Also, believe it or not, all that Law of Success stuff conveniently fits perfectly with the central themes of the story. In fact, you could see Kiki Banana as one big meditation on the concept of Value; what exactly it is, monetary value vs. sentimental value, intrinsic value vs. extrinsic value, etc., using the broad archetypes of pirates and treasure hunting as the medium... Yes, even this off-the-wall bonkers cartoon will have some philosophy hiding in it. I just can't help myself, sorry (not sorry).
...Wait a minute, what about your other stories and such? Your other Projects?
All put on the back-burner until Kiki Banana becomes a self-sufficient intellectual property asset, and by that I mean when it becomes an income-generating machine that can pay for its own expenses plus add a little extra to my pockets... and no, that's not the sole reason for going this route with the project! Of course I want to make this thing for its own sake, but if you seriously think I can do all this and not be compensated for it in some form or another... I don't know what to tell you, other than to remind you that people tend to value what they get most when they've given something for it in exchange, be that money, time, effort, attention, etc.
That's not to say I'm putting an absolute 100% into Kiki Banana. More like 90-95%. That other little bit of effort into other things is mostly for my own sanity, to give me little breaks here and there to avoid burnout. And, like I said, when Kiki Banana is generating an income for me, that's when I'll begin contemplating another project. But not until then!
But Kiki Banana doesn't really appeal to me, I like [OTHER THING] better...
Patience. Kiki Banana, like all good things, will eventually run its course. As soon as it does, I shall move on to something else, with as much zeal and fervor as I am with this. One thing at a time.
Conclusion
So in conclusion, if you're interested, keep checking back to KikiBanana.com, for as soon as I have anything to share, it's going up on that site. And at the rate I'm going now, that shouldn't be much longer at all.
So anyway, take care, and I'll see you in the next post!
