Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

[tomaO2]

Concerning the trailer, the main reason why I believe it exists is that too many people working in the field have spoken openly about their involvement with it (it's easy to find such videos of Phil LaMarr; the updates come from Matt King). The slow making does seem odd, however; under normal conditions, I would assume that the project has periodically run out of money and laid dormant until it got a new injection. The other option has to do with Goblin's traditionally slow production, if any work had to be done directly (instead of by the hired studio) while also creating new comic pages, working at the giveaways, and dealing with the usual personal issues.

New injections of money? You think they have been raising significant funds from corporate backers then? There has been a trickle of money coming in from the Gofundme, but it only added an additional 20k, or so. I remember how other projects got a lot of backlash from getting extra funds. Um, games that got funded by Epic, in return for an exclusive period on their gaming website is an example I recall. Would it be possible to find out if other funds have been added, and who added it? I feel like there should have been an announcement if there was a big infusion of money from someone else.

Hazbin Hotel? Never heard of it but I'm interested. Watched the episode. Seventy million views? That's amazingly good for an animation like this. Wait. The youtube channel has 6 million subscribers? A lot of these videos have millions of views as well. Over FIVE THOUSAND patrons? This project is a massive success on every possible level. Good for them.

Overall, it's not really my thing. It's very frenetic. Jumps around a lot. That said, I will agree that the animation/audio were great, and help sell the pilot. That Radio Demon was a standout character. Loved the radio voice and personality. My interest in the show went up a lot as soon as he showed up. This is another webcomic that is trying to get picked up by a network? It's just so tough, which makes me wonder how feasible this even is. Every possible level of success has been achieved by Hazbin, except mainstream backing.

If this show can't manage it, how could Goblins? I mean, yes, this Goblins project got a lot of famous voice actors, but voice actors don't have a lot of marketability (and there are plenty of people that can to just as good a job, as is shown in this Hazbin Hotel pilot), as is constantly shown by famous celebs doing voice work for major animations instead. That new Netflix's 'Masters of the Universe' cartoon being a great example. Mark Hamill and Sarah Michelle Gellar are fine actors, but they were clearly picked for their name brand, rather than if they were suitable for the parts they were playing (I do not believe they were). With top notch animation to boot. Not much consideration as to what fans of He Man might think about a show without much He Man though.

In the end, webcomics just can't make a dent in television/movies. Even the most famous ones, such as Girl Genius, which has books I can buy at the store, and even a radio play, can't break into the market. I don't think it's fair to withhold the animation in order to maybe have a slightly better chance at getting this picked up. However, I do agree that the fans should hear about why the animation is not considered good enough to release. I think that is a reasonable question. It's obviously something they will be talking to all these producers about, so why not tell the backers about what is wrong with it, specifically. I'm personally not sure if there is something wrong with it, or if Elli is just being overly controlling over everything, and it is actually fine. Could go either way, in my mind.

I think Temps Fate and the card game are shows of how controlling the author is in the limited area she is interested in. When it came to the artwork of the character cards, all that needed to be done by herself, but the management of the card game itself got no attention. Temps Fate has always been subject to overrun. The original Temps Fate was fun. It was a few simple drawings that got the point across. You didn't need more, but we got more. I actually complained about the expantion about it. I didn't see the need for all the increases in donations and art. I think it would have been fine if it had stayed at the original level. Small donation goals to help out, and easy art so it doesn't take up too much time.

That said, I would not deny that some of it was really good. Elli absolutely excels in interactive content. The Temps Fate puzzle challenges were a ton of fun, and the concept for the Temp's Fate RPG was actually something that had just as much interest, or even MORE interest, than in the comic itself. The hype for that was real. Design your own characters, plunge into the dungeons. Bi-weekly raids. It would have been glorious. I'd never been more excited to be a goblins fan than I was when that project was announced. It was bold and innovative, and it got a ton of attention. Too much, unfortunately, which led Elli to want to expand it, which caused the project to be postponed AFTER it started. In the handful of hours that the game went live, hundreds of dollars were donated. I think it was at least 600$. We were promised a new version that would be able to handle all the hundreds of people that wanted to play, but it was eventually canceled instead, because she couldn't be bothered to handle the work, or maybe because she decided that it just wasn't interesting to her anymore.

People complain about that last Temps Fate not giving people what they paid for but the RPG was much more egregious, in my mind. Money raised was just rolled into a new adventure that was, frankly, boring in comparison. People paid for the RPG and got some crappy Predator ripoff. How much money did that make again?

Hey... Wait a minute. Where are the Temps Fate comics? Looking. I can't find them.
Googling to find them. Not here.
Checking google images. Found images.
Clicking. No longer there.
Oh my god...

Elli DELETED Tempts Fate.

Why? Why would you do such a petty thing Elli? You think it's fine not to complete your comics of the character if you just delete all mentions? Do you feel that your Gofundme means that you can just ask for money without bothering to actually do anything, and you don't want people getting ideas about you ever doing work for it again? I'm mad now. Fans paid for every bit of that content and it got deleted. How can anyone trust a person that shows distain to the fans like this? There is no excuse for this. NONE!

I'm gonna stop talking before I say something that gets scrubbed. Just furious right now.

[Vinyadan]

I don't have any insider knowledge; it's just how I am used to see things work. Construction of a building is stopped for some years because the project stopped receiving funding, and resumes once money is back. A school stops offering a course because an external backer isn't donating any more, a new backer shows up the following year and the course is back (or the State finally coughs up some more dough...). A theater troupe stops touring for lack of a contract with a producer, and resumes after another one shows up. As I said, there's always a lot of issues surrounding Goblins production, even with just the comic, so it's possible that money has nothing to do with it. And the series is made up of 10 or 12 episodes; if they were written in advance, that would have taken quite a lot of time, especially as a collaboration between 2 or 3 people. And I don't know of the pandemic would have impacted the whole thing.

About Blind Ferret, the tragicomedy here is that the likely reason for the break-up is that they were entitled to market Goblins products, but were excluded from any dealing with the card game. It wasn't openly stated, but the timeline of tweets and blog posts strongly suggested this was the case. Especially this one: https://www.goblinscomic.com/blog/bi...es-for-goblins

[Typewriter]

I think that people talking about this stuff is important because it's the kind of thing that helps people make their decisions in whether or not to support a creator. I backed the Goblins board game and cancelled at the last minute because I was familiar with the track record Elli had with her content. I knew she wasn't the one running the Kickstarter but I knew I couldn't trust her to partner with anyone reliable. If I had only my own personal experiences of reading the comic up to that point and reading about all the things she'd done I might not have cancelled but I knew that her projects regularly imploded or got abandoned thanks to communities like this one and so I saved myself 99 dollars.

I didn't invest in her trailer or anything else and so I don't care what she does with the trailer or her projects. I'll read the comic as long as it remains free and that'll be the extent of my involvement with her. But that doesn't mean that I, or anyone else, shouldn't talk about her history with these projects because otherwise people will make the mistake of backing her without knowing what's going on. I mean it's already absurd that people can't even go to the actual Goblins site for updates related to Goblins content because she's essentially abandoned it as a means of communication. The last update is over a year old at this point and that one was from her wife. Ellis most recent blog post on the site is over 2 years old at this point. How are people supposed to know about this stuff without other people talking about it?

[sihnfahl]

Hazbin Hotel? Never heard of it but I'm interested. Watched the episode. Seventy million views? That's amazingly good for an animation like this. Wait. The youtube channel has 6 million subscribers? A lot of these videos have millions of views as well. Over FIVE THOUSAND patrons? This project is a massive success on every possible level. Good for them.

Viv's same-universe foray is far more successful AND has 7 additional episodes past the pilot.

And even has Richard Horvitz as the voice of a main character.

Hazbin didn't take off, IMHO, because the premise was extremely self-limiting. The pilot made it clear that -nobody- was seeking redemption.

[Divayth Fyr]

Hazbin didn't take off, IMHO, because the premise was extremely self-limiting. The pilot made it clear that -nobody- was seeking redemption.

Which I find a pity, since I really liked Alastor...

How are people supposed to know about this stuff without other people talking about it?

One could argue the less people hear about any Goblins-related projects and whatnot, the better for them ;)

[sihnfahl]

Which I find a pity, since I really liked Alastor...

Since it occurs in the same universe, Alastor CAN make an appearance, but it'd be more of a cameo than anything else, since the story is wholly wrapped around The Four at this point.

[Giulio64]

Hazbin didn't take off.

What? yes it did, they are producing it together with A24. Just a few days ago they even made an official instagram account. It'll probably still take some time, maybe even years, for it to be released, but it wasn't abandoned.

[Dragonus45]

Hazbin didn't take off, IMHO, because the premise was extremely self-limiting. The pilot made it clear that -nobody- was seeking redemption.

Sorry what? After it got approximately a billion views on youtube Netflix picked it up and it's getting made as we speak. It took off like it was aiming for escape velocity.

[Taevyr]

Yeah, I'd guess that part of the original reasoning behind Helluva was to keep Viv in the public consciousness: a way to bridge the gap between Hazbin getting picked up by Netflix and it actually getting released. Like dropping lore, interviews with showrunners/writers and short clips before release.

Then it turned out people just freaking love that bridge (and for good reason, imo), and now it's a sensation all on its own. And both spread across the internet on their own: a very unique animation style, highly meme-able, the typical character twitter account things... they put in the effort, and it paid off. Even if it might be a bit "lightning in a bottle", they definitely worked for it.

Goblins.... I stumbled upon it when going through the webcomic forum 'bout a year ago, and it seemed interesting. Read most of it in about a week, during holidays. Now, I check here every week or so to see if there's a new page, but the glacial pace doesn't exactly keep me invested. Additionally, there's little to no presence of it on the larger web, almost no public communication from the artist (which is certainly understandable to a degree), and the storyline is... mature isn't the right word, but grimdark enough that I don't see many studio's pick it up without either being certain of a big existing audience, or enough changes to make it more palatable for one. Finally, any studio worth their salt would want to know whether they actually get a finished story, to which the answer would likely be "no". I enjoy(ed) the comic, but if I ran a studio, I wouldn't take a chance on it that'd involve any economical risk on my side.

[smuchmuch]

Viv's same-universe foray is far more successful AND has 7 additional episodes past the pilot.

And even has Richard Horvitz as the voice of a main character.

Hazbin didn't take off, IMHO, because the premise was extremely self-limiting. The pilot made it clear that -nobody- was seeking redemption.

Didn't pick up ? Have you seen the amount of views and all ? It was ridiculously well recieved considering it's flaws.
Also didn't it get a contract with tv network A24 I believe ?
I think if anything the success of Helluva boss (who did turn out to be a lot better than anyone could have expected from the trailer, wy more character focuss and good wrtting, I have to say) is only building hype for more Hazbon Hotel. (Weither or not it does happen... that's something else...)

But we're getting away from goblins....

Goblins.... I stumbled upon it when going through the webcomic forum 'bout a year ago, and it seemed interesting. Read most of it in about a week, during holidays. Now, I check here every week or so to see if there's a new page, but the glacial pace doesn't exactly keep me invested. Additionally, there's little to no presence of it on the larger web, almost no public communication from the artist (which is certainly understandable to a degree), and the storyline is... mature isn't the right word, but grimdark enough that I don't see many studio's pick it up without either being certain of a big existing audience, or enough changes to make it more palatable for one. Finally, any studio worth their salt would want to know whether they actually get a finished story, to which the answer would likely be "no". I enjoy(ed) the comic, but if I ran a studio, I wouldn't take a chance on it that'd involve any economical risk on my side.

Agreed. I dodn't see Goblins working much as a series. Not sure who the target audience would be except diehard fans of the comics and maybe people who really love 1rst edition D&D and grimdark. (yet still kinda cartonny, which seriously limits the audience). It's not funny enough to be a comedy and too slow paced to be an action show. It'd need sompe serious rewriting to be made into a show, taked a very different dirrection from the comics, i think.

[Dragonus45]

Agreed. I dodn't see Goblins working much as a series. Not sure who the target audience would be except diehard fans of the comics and maybe people who really love 1rst edition D&D and grimdark. (yet still kinda cartonny, which seriously limits the audience). It's not funny enough to be a comedy and too slow paced to be an action show. It'd need sompe serious rewriting to be made into a show, taked a very different dirrection from the comics, i think.

Given the current push in D&D about race and alignment I absolutely see a niche for a story about Goblins rising up to become PCs and fighting back, and the much harder edge of Goblins could also help set it apart from a lot of other current D&D related media. It's like Goblin Slayer but this time it's the Goblins turn! The only large issue is that it is very 3.5 centered but that kind of thing could I think be shifted a bit without losing much if they could find a way to help Vorpal keep making sense. Well for a certain value of make sense. That just make a movie. It will flow better with this plot

[Traab]

The thing that bothers me is that, as written, it would probably last all of a season to reach the current point in the story. At least with GoT we had enough material that it was worth working through the published material even with an unfinished series. With how Goblins is, it would be like running out of written material when ned stark got killed. Just enough stuff to drum up interest, then nothing left to keep it.

[Vinyadan]

The thing that bothers me is that, as written, it would probably last all of a season to reach the current point in the story. At least with GoT we had enough material that it was worth working through the published material even with an unfinished series. With how Goblins is, it would be like running out of written material when ned stark got killed. Just enough stuff to drum up interest, then nothing left to keep it.

If I recall correctly, LaMarr talked about 10 or 12 episodes. If it's 20 min episodes as it's frequent with animation, I'm not sure of how much comic would fit in. However, an episodic format needs something to happen every episode, so some things would be heavily compressed: the first episode could fully comprise the player's attack to the Goblin camp, and end with the goblins becoming PCs, because it's the story's premise. The second episode could be Vorpal disappearing and the Orc swamp. And so on.

[Anteros]

A bigger problem is how you would even split up the plot threads. Dies Horribly's plot seems to have nothing to do with the others, so do you just cut it? Do you bring the main plot to a grinding halt to include it like they did in the comic? Same thing for the Maze of Many, although at least that one led back into the actual plot. The pacing in this comic is bad and I don't just mean the update speed. You'd have to majorly rework everything to make it work on screen. Which isn't even close to the comic's biggest problem. You'll simply never get a main stream publisher to sign up for the amount of torture-porn and gore that Goblins contains. Another way you'd have to rewrite things.

[Traab]

If I recall correctly, LaMarr talked about 10 or 12 episodes. If it's 20 min episodes as it's frequent with animation, I'm not sure of how much comic would fit in. However, an episodic format needs something to happen every episode, so some things would be heavily compressed: the first episode could fully comprise the player's attack to the Goblin camp, and end with the goblins becoming PCs, because it's the story's premise. The second episode could be Vorpal disappearing and the Orc swamp. And so on.

I dunno, I think the first episode could be all the silly stuff the goblin warcamp and minmax and crew are up to before the attack. We get introduced to the main characters in a fairly organic manner, we get the setup for the goblin camp meetup, and learn the personalities of everyone. Its a bit D&D joke heavy, so that might be an issue.

[smuchmuch]

Given the current push in D&D about race and alignment I absolutely see a niche for a story about Goblins rising up to become PCs and fighting back, and the much harder edge of Goblins could also help set it apart from a lot of other current D&D related media. It's like Goblin Slayer but this time it's the Goblins turn! T

As a theme, 'fantasy from the point of view of the monters', sure. In fact given how many anime did it, there's certainly some market for a D&D western cartoon, for sure. but the storry of Goblins, as it is written in this comics ? Not without some severe rewriting. The story points are all over the place, there's a lot of character and .. uh well at this point the story got pretty far from the original theme didn't it ?
This used to be about "Goblins become Pc, perspective get shifted". Even the Die horribly stuff did sort of tied to a genral storry because it was all about the ogue goblin clan who wants revenge on the humans, so it brewed up to a conflict betwee humans and goblins...
And then now everyhting is about.. stopping a demon lord from turning the world into hell on earth ? With a whole arc for Minimax and Forgtath in the Maze of Many thing. A bunch of stuff happened all over the plce and while it does all connect together, I suppose, it's still feel extremly disjointed since everyone left brassmoon city.

(Also the obsession with 1rst edition style style dungeons with riddles, puzzles and traps so some of which so weird and out of the blue that it makes the tomb of horror downright down to earth in comparaison. I know at this point it's kind of part of the style of the comic and it did give some really creative stuff (Mr Fingers or the fightong you future/past selves being great examples) but it /is/ a part of what make the pacing of the story so slow, I feel.)

So yeah to work as a cartoon, the entire thing would likely have to be rewritten from the ground up, IMO. Streamlined a lot at the very least.

[Draconi Redfir]

I'm pretty sure the animated show would be an original story unrelated to the current comic storyline. Different universes are already established from the maze of many, so this could just be an alternate universe that maybe never entered the maze to begin with, and is going through different steps and stories.

[BaronOfHell]

New page https://www.goblinscomic.com/comic/page-18-2021

I think it's a nice one.

This (page 18) was the last reference to a new page/comic I could find.

Page 19 is up, but it says it is from before the year change, hence you might already have read it.

[Vinyadan]

I have to ask, why can the Gargoyle hear just fine, but cannot see, in spite of having eyes, but no ears (those look like horns to me)?

[Kantaki]

I have to ask, why can the Gargoyle hear just fine, but cannot see, in spite of having eyes, but no ears (those look like horns to me)?

Might be blind. At least that's the first thing that comes to mind.

[Keltest]

I have to ask, why can the Gargoyle hear just fine, but cannot see, in spite of having eyes, but no ears (those look like horns to me)?

I assumed they couldnt see because Big Ears' head was in the way.

[Anteros]

I assumed they couldnt see because Big Ears' head was in the way.

They established that he couldn't see anything when they found him.

[tomaO2]

This (page 18) was the last reference to a new page/comic I could find.

Page 19 is up, but it says it is from before the year change, hence you might already have read it.

The "2021" refers to when it was released on her patron, not on her website. The first early look was posted on Dec 29th on patron (with normal being posted on Jan 1st, and high res on Jan 4th), but it definitely was not up on the website before Jan 1st. Hmm, why post a high res and a normal res version on Patron? Should just be the high res, with the normal being posted on the website, in my opinion. Who would want to look at the normal res when you can look at the high one?

[Draconi Redfir]

probably the high res version can't be hosted on the website due to compression issues, Patreon might have a better hosting source, or maybe you download the high-res image onto your own computer. I got download links for uncoloured comics back when that was happening.

or maybe it's just a reward thing for higher tier donors. that's a valid thing that many artists do.

[tomaO2]

I think I might be done with this comic. I'm going to have to seriously think about how I am feeling for the next while. I've been really upset with Elli for a lot of things, and I thought my opinion of Elli had gotten as low as it possibly could after she deleted all the Tempts Fate comics, but I was wrong. I have now broken to the point of feeling contempt.

When you start openly talking on twitter about how you are cheating on your wife, the woman that has fully supported you in every aspect of your life, for well over a decade, and have the nerve to play it off as an empowering act of being trans... Well, it's really hard for me to keep disassociating the artist from the art at that point. I'm not quoting, or linking, what was said, cause I'm not sure if it is allowed or not, but it's exactly what I said. Cheating on the wife in order to have "an important moment in discovering my sexuality".

Sorry, suddenly being bisexual doesn't mean you can have a bunch of affairs with all the men that you missed out on when you were young.

I don't care how Danelle was convinced to allow this, but the woman has been an absolute rock for this... GOBLIN... for years and years, and now is being openly cucked? I can't even.

How can someone post this stuff, when trying to get a studio deal for an animation? Anyone that a company is interested in will be checking your social media profile. Who would want to deal with someone that acts like this in public? It's a public relations nightmare.

EDIT:
It's being posted on twitter, so there has to be consent, but if it had been open before now, then Elli would have said something about it. Clearly, it being an "open" relationship is a new development, and I don't want to know what level of emotional manipulation went into getting Danelle to agree to this.

[Cygnia]

...maybe they agreed to an open marriage...?

Not that I'm an Elli cheerleader or follow the twitter in question, but it is a possible option. However, if the wife isn't consenting to this, then yeah, mudsling away.

[Fyraltari]

Why do you care who Elli has sex with? Even if if her wife wasn't aware, which I doubt because because why would she post something she'd want secret on Twitter, that's between the two of them.

Edit: Like, you've made it pretty clear that you think she's some kind of con-artist and loathe her for it, which makes sense to me. What I don't get is why extra-martial sex seems so much worse to you, that that's the line for you.

[Anonymouswizard]

Clearly, it being an "open" relationship is a new development, and I don't want to know what level of emotional manipulation went into getting Danelle to agree to this.

Do you have any proof that it being an agreed polyamorous/open relationship is a new development? Do you have any proof that Danelle was emotionally manipulated into this?

After scrolling through a month of Twitter I can't find anything to base these assumptions on, and I don't know Twitter well enough to make digging through it anymore not make me want to scream. So she's had her first sexual experience with a cis man, eh, it's up for her to share as much as she wants. But nothing I can find that suggests they weren't in an open or polyamorous relationship beforehand, or that her spouse isn't having her own partners. As long as it's always been consensual there's no problem with it.

[Keltest]

Man, I remember when this thread was for talking about the comic.

If you hate her that much, why are you even looking at her twitter?

[Anonymouswizard]

Man, I remember when this thread was for talking about the comic.

There's a comic!?