Finally A Prototype I Can Work With...

<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');

class Dates extends MY_Controller {

    public function index()
    {
        $getMonth = date('m');
        $currentMonth = $getMonth;
        $getYear = date('Y');
        $currentYear = $getYear;
        $firstYear = 2011;

        echo '<h1>' . $currentYear . '</h1><br />';
        for($month = $currentMonth; $month >= 0; $month-- ) {
            if($month < 10) {
                $month = sprintf("%02d", $month);
            }
            if($month == 0 && $currentYear > $firstYear) {
                $month = 12;
                $currentYear--;
                echo '<h1>' . $currentYear . '</h1><br />';
            }
            if($month > 0) {
                $datequery = $currentYear . "-" . $month;
                $this->db->from('px_topics');
                $this->db->like('date', $datequery, 'after');
                $this->db->order_by('date', 'DESC');
                $query = $this->db->get();
                $res = $query->result_array();

                if($query->num_rows() > 0) {
                    echo '<h2>' . date("F", mktime(0,0,0, $month, 10)) . '</h2><br />';
                    echo '<strong>Your date query is ' . $datequery . '</strong><br />';
                }
                //print_r($res);
                foreach($res as $title) {
                    if($query->num_rows() > 0) {
                        echo '<h4>Title -' . $title['title'] . '</h4><br />';
                    } else {
                        echo 'nothing to see here...<br />';
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

/* End of file dates.php */
/* Location: ./application/controllers/dates.php */