This is a contest entry for the 12-12 project created by the Art & Story hosts. They have a selection of headlines from the December 12th newspaper of some year, and a selection of objects. You randomly choose 3 headlines and 3 objects, then make a comic incorporating them.
These were my headlines:

1. Miss Martie wins Horse Race
2. Senator confesses upon retirement
3. Ukranian leader poisoned

These were my objects:

1. Black cat
2. Xylophone
3. Ham

Tomorrow is most likely the deadline for getting your own comic in the running. The deadline is officially “When Art & Story 52 goes live on the website”, and usually it goes up on a Tuesday. The winner is chosen at random, so artists of all skill levels have an equal chance at winning. The purpose of this is to jog the creativity and have fun. I gotta say, it WAS pretty fun. I love creative challenges. I plan on using this technique for ideas in the future.

Because of this contest, I’m introducing Midnight Jackson about a year sooner than I expected, AND I’m introducing the new color-coded bar on the comic. I plan on jumping around the timeline from time to time, so anything before Kenny was born will have a brown title bar so things don’t get too confusing(in addition to the standard "xx years in the future..."). The black bar will always indicate Kenny’s teenage years, where the comic will spend most of its time.