GLT to return very soon!

It's been one year to the day since I produced my first real overproduced comedy sketch, Skeletor's Meeting.  For those of you who know what I'm talking about, why don't you go listen to it?  For those of you who don't, why don't you check out 2mustaches ?

So you'll notice there have been no Goblins in this space recently.

The reason for that, really, is that I have been working monstrous overtime hours since the end of November. As much as I hate to say it, I'm not Jeph Jacques, and I have to weave the cartoons in around everything else.

In addition, I've had some other recent concerns.  Natch, Two Mustaches takes up a little bit of my free time, and we've been trying to hold regular D&D sessions (which seems to be a losing battle, but we will persevere).

At any rate, the other shoe finally dropped and I have to move out in order to save my credit rating and the box of He-Man action figures I have in my closet.  I'm unloading as much junk as I am able, and the rest is coming with me (hopefully in a greatly diminished travel size).

Hope is not lost!  GLT will return soon with some fresh stories and characters (I owe xlshadow 'The Greatest Igik Stories Ever Told'), and I'm hoping that freeing up resources will permit me to work on another new project.  The podcast will continue, as well; if you haven't heard the latest Dos Bigotes yet, it might be worth a listen.  I think so, but I'm on it and very heavily biased towards my own genius.

Pray for me, wish me luck, send me dinner and buy my damn couch.

Poopey Snoopy.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do for today's, so I let it wait 'till this morning.  Fortunately, I got it done before 11:00 am.

I hope you all enjoy Thanksgiving wherever you are, and I hope you listen to the Alice's Restaurant Massacree just as many times as I do today.

I think the panel with the kobolds is delightfully cluttered, don't you?

( Guest comics after the cut! )

Awwww, you didn't think I'd miss Halloween, did you?  Left to right: He-Gik, Samurai Gork, Jason Blarfhees, Mr. Boss.

I've got one in the chute for Monday, plus some guest stuff.  Keep bettin' on the goblins!

Hmm... Igik may have some competition for "new all-around favorite" since Blarf showed up.  I think my original idea was to have Boss leaning against a stump or a tree or something, and somehow I just never added it.

I found out today that my pay is being cut by 10%.  Apparently this is a nationwide thing with our corporation, whose name I shall not mention.  As a result, I am looking for a new, more profitable job.  If any of you know someone who will pay me 70k a year to act, draw, write, perform tech support, read Shakespeare, dig up Shakespeare, or perform heavy lifting, lemme know.

An aside to my friends: Be warned!  I may act really, really cheap for a little while, and expect autographed pictures of Igik as Christmas presents this year.

As for my job, well... I can only hope that they are doing with that 10% what I want them to do with that 10%.

Blarf, a/k/a "Positive Outlook Jones", has, if anything, the best attitude one can have when one is about to be inducted into such a group, and will probably do well here.

Whoo!  Got one done before bed.  Let's hope I can keep it up for a few days at least.

Everyone please welcome Blarf, the newest cast member!  I think you'll like him.  He likes you.  I asked.

blueshat says that every time I hit a milestone with GLT, I suddenly stop doing comics.  Apparently that is true.  What's it been, like almost a month?

Thanks to not_tragedi, one of the flagship members of the Goblins Like These Media Assassin Squad Street Team, for the new LJ theme!  This will hold me over nicely until the GLT site goes up

Sunday evening saw the first-ever episode of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Goblins Like These Edition!

Essentially, it was AD&D2E, with the following additions:
-All player characters are instead characters from GLT.
-Instead of proficiencies, all goblins are given special traits that vary by goblin.  These traits are either helpful or detrimental, and fit the character's personality and/or annoying habits.

The traits system is sort of borrowed from Kobolds Ate My Baby!  Here's an example from Boss's rap sheet:

Edges:
THEY CALL HIM BOSS
-Boss is a natural-born leader, as far as goblins go.  That's not saying much.  When Boss is leading a party into combat, all party members gain +1 to hit from his commanding aura.  Each round, all characters must make a successful morale check to maintain this bonus.
BATTLE-HARDENED
-Boss has seen more action than Gene Simmons and Wilt Chamberlain combined.  In battle, I mean.  He receives -1 to his AC and +1 to hit based on his combat prowess.

Bogeys:
BOSSY
-Much as they love their commander, the other goblins talk about Boss's mother behind his back an awful lot.  This has given him a really bad temper (and a slight Oedipal complex).  As such, he does not tolerate stupidity among the ranks.  If one of the other party members acts blatantly stupid, Boss must save vs. spell or engage in loud shouting and, if necessary, violent discipline.

And so on for the rest of the goblins.

Since there are only three main characters in GLT, I had to come up with extras for the game, who will probably be introduced into the comic within a week or two.  Tonight we featured the new Shaman-In-Training and Ancillary Goblin, BLARF!  (He was almost called Flart, but good taste won out.)

Highlights of the evening:
-Igik acquired a "pet" badger, which he named Bitey due to its terrible tendency to gnaw on his wrist (Bitey did not last very long)
-Boss slapped his cronies ten times and stabbed Igik in the forehead once
-Gork, very in-character, completely did not see the rattlesnake next to him
-Blarf offered to make "unholy water" out of goblin whizz
-Gork knocked out Heathen D. Pistolwhip and the goblins proceeded to rob him blind
-The goblins were nearly cooked in a stew by Li'l Bob the Ogre; Igik even helped to chop the onions
-Igik continually produced cooking supplies that I never approved, which is exactly what I was hoping would happen
-Gork knocked out Boss with boomerang; Boss sunk like Lusitania
-Jokes about shampoo which I shall not repeat here

All in all, it was a rollicking laugh-fest and I can't wait for the next one.

Whoa, number fifty!  I think I've come pretty far since the first little scribble done in ballpoint pen.

I had something in mind for Igik's pose in panel two - a Roy Lichtenstein painting that I saw several years ago.  However, I couldn't find it via any image search, so this is an approximation.  Natch, I'll find it sometime today.  Anyway, comics reflecting art reflecting comics is pretty heavy.

Speaking of comics, if you missed my prior post, I did a write-up of Tuesday's The Wizard of Id.  It's wordy but I think I get my point across.

Also speaking of comics, would any of you guys be interested in buying up some Goblins Like these minicomics in a month or two?

If you've ever discussed newspaper comics with me (don't), you know that I think a lot of them are terrible.  This mainly applies to the antiquated titles, e.g. strips that have been around for a long time but are on the 5th artist by now due to the deaths of the other 4, etc.

The Wizard of Id is one such strip.  Here we have a comic that doesn't rely on character development, but feels inaccessible without knowing something about the cast (i.e. Sir Rodney is a coward, the King is a fink, Bung is an alcoholic, the Wizard hates his wife).  Fortunately, the characters are shallow enough that reading for a week generally gets you caught up.  The strip puts too much emphasis on the punchline and not nearly enough on the visual (not always the case, but one day a year ain't saying much).  In fact, most of the jokes at the king's expense could be made between any two random people in the land of Id.

The thing I hate the most about The Wizard of Id, however, is that the last panel almost always has the person delivering the punchline addressing their straight man, eyes closed, walking away.  It's the weirdest thing.  I guess in Id, conversations are short and one must act snooty to signify that there has been enough banter.



I read today's, though, and thought it was really good.  The joke is complete, and it takes advantage of the visual medium as well as the text:

    Panel 1: Obviously, Rodney and the King have seen the ever-invading Huns.  Rodney looks alarmed, the King looks surprised.  It's all we need.

    Panel 2: Parker uses a second panel here, and it works.  Rodney, still alarmed, turns back to the King, who has collected himself after giving his orders to his lieutenant.  It gives us a little more action, something else to look at.  One could feasibly cram this text into one of the other panels, but I think it does just fine standing alone.

    Panel 3: The King drops the bomb.  Oh snap!  Here is a little more of the often-anachronistic humor that one finds in The Wizard of Id.  Sure, jokes about oil prices... well, that dead horse is sufficiently beaten.  It gets some extra mileage, though, to think that the King is mad about our oil crisis, for his own miserly reasons!  Thus, the joke gains another level: the King is a cheapskate, and oil ain't free!  As a  bonus, the King isn't walking away with his eyes closed; he's addressing Rodney directly, with this "oh-no-you-don't" expression on his face.  Visuals!  A visual medium, indeed!

Fortunately, for the Wizard of Id, the strip seems to have gotten better in the last couple months, since the passing of Johnny Hart.  Brant Parker's son, Jeff, now runs the show, and I hope he can keep up the trend.

A last strange thought: Crock, another newspaper comic, is very similar to The Wizard of Id in style, writing and characters.  It was also created by Brant Parker, but Johnny Hart wasn't involved with it (it's now produced by two other cartoonists).  For some reason, although I find them incredibly similar, I really like Crock.  I have no explanation as to why this is so.

Anyway, I'd like to hear from some other cartoonists on this.

Ada a/k/a midgetvampire has probably added as many characters to GLT as I have at this point.

Igik's family must be from uptown or something.  I dunno.  Anyway, his sister's a fox.

The "No Hats" thing will be explained later.

The aftermath of the previous strip.  This was so telegraphed that I'm being sued by the estate of Samuel Morse.

Guest comic tomorrow, even if I don't have a regular strip to go up!

I didn't finish a GLT strip today because I was working on this guy:


I drew this for the daughter of one of my co-workers.  I'd like to color it in GIMP and give her a print of that also, but I think it came out good for something I haven't drawn in about 12 years.

The great thing about Igik is that if I ever need to write him out of the strip, he presents me with countless opportunities to do so.

( Fanart and plushies after the cut! )

 When he isn't busy being Boss's right-hand toady, Igik likes to practice his hand in the kitchen.  He's actually not bad, if you enjoy all your entrées either boiled or flambée.

Tomorrow: Goblins Love Fanart, Plushies and Boxing!

Edit: I nearly forgot!  Credit for today's strip goes to midgetvampire

Thanks to everyone who was concerned that Igik was dead after the last comic.  It's nice when people become attached to your characters.