This was the first drawing I ever did of Jonah (left) & Jonathan (right) although at the time I didn't even know that was going to be their names. I had just recently finished reading "Quizzy", an excellent ongoing furry comic by
I had been looking for something like this for quite some time. Something ongoing (not a one off), that was heavily story and character driven, slice of life and skewing towards realism, involved sexual themes but where such was an organic part of a larger whole rather than the sole aspect of the work (ie. a "porn comic"). Suffice it to say I was inspired.
The story follows the hopeless misadventures of a love struck boy Corey, who is barely even on speaking terms with his all consuming crush Izzy McIntosh, and his stumbling attempts to form a connection with her. The comic is wonderfully self reflective, happening almost entirely from inside the mind of 9-year old Corey narrating his adventures in love and horniness.
This comic, combined with many of my own philosophical ideas and painful things I'm going through right now, formed the basis of BTBF. Jonah, like Corey, is completely obsessed with his crush, almost to a religious level (much like Corey), but the twist is, he has an all-encompassing crush on his life long best friend (a rabbit boy named Jonathan). At the start of the story he's an early teen (13-14), which is equivalent to the early puberty Corey is experiencing (9-10). Like Quizzy, we take on an almost all consuming point of view of our love stuck hopeless "hero". Even some of the comic conventions established have been borrowed such as using square boxes to contain thought narration by our narrator Jonah.
Beyond these basic similarities however the stories are very different. For one, unlike Corey and his crush Izzy who he has almost no social contact with whatsoever, Jonah & Jonathan share a long history together that goes back to almost their earliest memories. In this way Jonah is a lot more lucky than Corey. However at the outset of the story we intimate that some terrible (unspecified) rift has occurred between them and Jonah has gone into a deep and potentially self destructive depression. This is very different than Corey's situation. They both are insanely infatuated (to the point of being almost laughable, Corey's "Izzy is Life" proclaimations or Jonah's poetic "*He* is my whole world and everything in it, without *him* I'm like a planet without a star, and with nothing to orbit I drift out into the black void of absolute nothingness"). Unlike Corey though who doesn't even know what Izzy would feel for him yet, Jonah has very clearly already been jilted in some manner. It's one thing to have an all consuming crush, its quite another thing to have an all consuming crush and be rejected in some way. These are the significant ways the stories differ. Other than that, they both stick to real life, no magic no supernatural stuff, realistic life like scenarios, nothing too over the top sexually (the level of activity you would expect in real life and not just fantasy). They both involve a certain kind of desparation and a certain level of delusion. They both explore the lives of our main character outside their crush (before they met, and other interactions outside their crush). So they have a lot of common ground. Corey is more whimsical and childlike in his musings, Jonah is more pensive brooding and philosophical in his musings, but in both cases we get a window into they way THEY think about the world. So you could say BTBF is a spiritual successor even though it is completely different in tone and content.
As I was reading Quizzy I became increasingly infatuated in Corey himself. This became the basis of my story, a boy with a hopeless crush on another boy "like Corey". The influence can be seen here in the very first picture of Jonah. Initially the idea was that Jonah would be a fox just like Corey, but I wanted to try and differientate him so I took a squirrel toddler character I drew for "Squirrely Squirrels" and aged him up to create my new squirrel character instead (this was later changed to chipmunk to even further differentiate him and this is when Jonah gained his distinct facial stripe and tail stripes). Now we needed a new boy to pair him off with. In the comic Corey has two friends, a rabbit named Chris and a pig named Brandon. In the story Corey is not close to these two and we never see them more than once. In any case I thought Chris was really cute and he became the base for Jonathan. Then, as frequently happens with my boy pairs, I vacillate between which boy should be the persuer and which one should be the persued. Initially I planned to make the "corey-like" character the object of affection, but I found my rabbit character cuter/more confident/cooler and my chipmunk character more socially awkward, so it made more sense the other way around.
Ultimately though, while I was satisfied with the design for my rabbit-character (kinda starting to crush on my own creation), I wasn't quite so pleased with my chipmunk-character. Still not distinctive enough. This lead to a redesign which can be seen in my Submission "Best Besties Ever", which has become the canon appearance of the characters.
I knew at the outset that a rift was going to occur. It was the core concept of the story from the beginning because I had recently experienced rejection from someone I got too attached to and as a kind of "vent art" therapy I wanted to express the experience of rejection in fictional form. The fact that the idea of these two having a rift had such a strong impact on me emotionally told me that I had hit upon something that would be of great personal importance to me. This story is basically a perfect storm of everything that has happened in my life up to this point. Still, I was hesitant to go foward with the idea (as more than idea) because it just seemed too depressing and I wasn't sure how people would react. In the end however I decided that this was too important a story for me not to tell. Thus BTBF was born.
um ... didn't really give that much thought ... :/ furmerica?
It would have to be somewhere "america-like" because of various references. First of all, there is high religiousity, specifically christian. Both Jonah and Jonathan are exposed to religion to varying degrees and it influences their thinking (though in radically different ways). This can be seen in certain aspects of the story even within the first 3 pages. For example Jonah trying to "pray these feelings away". Secondly, the prevalence of biblical names, Jonah, Jonathan, Joseph etc.
As for the time frame, the cassette player suggests late 80s or early 90s unless Jonah is just THAT retro :p
um ... didn't really give that much thought ... :/ furmerica? It would have to be somewhere "ameri
No, I was thinking of a cameo kind of situation. Reading you talk about Quizzy made me all warm and fuzzy inside, and seeing that you became inspired by it made me feel so good, put me up on a high that has lasted all morning, so I figured why not, if by just a tiny thread, connect them in some way. Would be pretty cool. You mentioned one of Corey's school friends, that bunny kid, well, what if he was related in some way. No reason to see that bunny kid (and a cousin *winkwink*) wouldn't make an appearance in Quizzy, right?
Anyway, I loved reading what you had to say about Quizzy, and I wish you the best of luck with BTBF n__n
No, I was thinking of a cameo kind of situation. Reading you talk about Quizzy made me all warm and
Aw, I'm glad I made you happy. And thanks for the well wishes. I was a little worried you might be a bit unhappy on how heavy an influence your work is (at its core anyway, just taken in a radically different sort of direction), I'm glad you don't bear it any ill will.
As for how these two worlds could be connected, even casually, I'll have to give it some thought and get back to you on that (maybe by pm). One immediate problem is I like to set my stories in the time period of my childhood (hence the 80s and 90s. There are various reasons for that but I won't go into it here) but you seem to prefer to set your stories in the present (2020s?). I did briefly consider a more modern setting (for reasons I won't go into because it's potentially spoilerific) but eventually settling on the 80s/90s I'm more familiar with because I realized I could still create the same emotional impact even without the presence of modern communication technology.
We can discuss it in private if you like, but not here because talking about something so far in the future of this time line would definitely involve spoilers (will they won't they is certainly a question in the air at the outset of the story, and if not what will become of Jonah. Don't worry I have clear answers to all these but the story should be the one to tell it, not "me" ;)
Aw, I'm glad I made you happy. And thanks for the well wishes. I was a little worried you might be a
