I'll be accepting my Aurora Award for '2011 Best English Graphic Novel' at the 'Gibsons and District Public Library' tomorrow (January 22nd) at 3:00pm. It'll be a tiny thing. No big deal. Some media coverage. Come out and say hi if you're in the area. Danielle is making me write this announcement. Seriously though, thanks SO much to those who supported me in the Auroras! ~Thunt

So the 4th annual Shorty Awards have started up. This year, I've decided to pimp myself out a bit for it. I know, I'm a whore. Anyways, voting for me is free and takes five to ten seconds. The only catch is that you need a Twitter account. You HAVE to type in a reason (after the word "because...") or the vote won't count. It can be really quick if you're like me and hate homework, which this almost is. Also, if you vote for me again in the same category, your new vote will simply replace your old vote. I appreciate the attempt though. If you don't follow me on Twitter, you should. I often tweet stuff that I think is funny, but usually isn't. Sometimes I even tweet about the comic. Also, for every thousand followers I gain, I'll go back in time and kick a nazi. Now to vote for me in the Hugos, you need to be a member of a past, present or future Worldcon. Here are the details. Scroll down to the category "Best Graphic Story" and vote for me there. You're welcome to vote for someone else, but be prepared to receive my phonecalls of sobbing at four in the morning. Also, there's now an official Goblins Facebook page. I didn't make it. It was made by fans much smarter than me. Feel free to go join it. There's also this thing on Reddit. The chat room connected with my ustream channel has become something very special. There are always people hanging out there and talking about geeky stuff and just being awesome. And these are some of the best people to waste time with online. Ustream chat is pretty cluncky, so feel free to download mIRC and use that to connect to the chat if you prefer. See instructions on how to do that below. The regulars in the chat room will be happy to help you as well. You can also earn XP and gold by chatting. Once you have enough of each, you can do things like launch other chatters with various devices or silence them for brief periods of time (that effect is pretty high level though). If you're having trouble getting your name to show up in the chat room, try typing... /nick <username> . How to set up mIRC with Ustream... In mIRC options under Servers Click Add In Add Server Description: ustream.tv Chat IRC Server: chat1.ustream.tv Ports: 6667 Group: ustream Password: <your ustream password> Click Add. Then type -->  j/ drawing-goblins  <-- to join the channel. And most of all, as always, thanks for reading. ~Thunt

Boo. As always, thanks for reading. ~Thunt

Today I read a blog post by PVP creator Scott Kurtz. In this post, he points out how out of touch newspaper syndicates are, by explaining how lame a certain cartoonist contest is. He then goes on to offer his services (along with Brad Guigar) as a paid consultant to the highest bidder. At first, this seems like a funny way of teasing the syndicates for not being able to keep up with the changes happening in the genre. However, it isn't long before he urges the syndicate to bid on his expertise before legends like Jim Davis or Lynn Johnston manage to nab him. All the while, insulting the syndicate and assuring them that they and all newspapers will be gone in five years because he read that in a survey somewhere. I kept trying to laugh it all off as a joke, but that's difficult to do when the title of his blog post is "Yes, We're Serious". Now, I'm no business expert, but I'm pretty sure that it's a bad idea to hire a business consultant who spends most of his proposal publicly insulting you and repeatedly assuring you that you'll be gone soon. I also find it astounding that he envisions the creators of Garfield and For Better Or For Worse rushing to bid on him like children chasing an ice cream truck during a heat wave. We all know that PVP is a major player in webcomics as is Kurtz himself. The man knows what he's doing and he does his job well, but with this blog post of his, I can't help but picture him wearing a tshirt with the words "comics legend" written on it in black marker. That marker of course, being held by Kurtz himself. I also can't help but wonder if all of this animosity has anything to do with the fact that Kurtz was refused membership into the NCS. The cartooning contest that Kurtz attacks will place the winning comic on gocomics.com, give the author(s) 100% of any ad revenue generated by the comic and offer them an ebook publishing contract. "This is not a prize. Anyone can put their comic on a webpage and populate it with ads from Google Adsense. GoComics.com isn’t promising (nor can it deliver) traffic." Says Kurtz. "Also there is no such thing as an electronic-book publishing contract. That’s like selling freshman elevator passes on the first day of the spring semester." Really? Having one's comic appear on Gocomic.com with legends like Calvin & Hobbes, Doonesbury and Peanuts isn't a prize? A site with a global Alexa rank of 3,149 (PVP's rank being a lower 18,619). Also, speaking from personal experience, my own "freshman elevator pass" with Drivethrucomics.com has been making me residual income for years. It seems to exist. I'm not saying that newspapers aren't in trouble, and his statement about them all disappearing in five years doesn't seem impossible, but does he really believe that he's cartooning's only hope? That he's so 'Neo-like' in his importance that he can slap them with his right hand while simultaneously offering his expertise with his left "for the right price" and have cartooning's biggest pioneers fighting to pay him? Wait... I've got to check the title of his blog post one more time. ... Yep, it still says "Yes, We're Serious". Jesus Christ. Sorry, I meant Jesus Kurtz. So to the old school cartoonists, I say... yes, you need to do a better job keeping up with this century. But for the love of Starscream, don't hire Kurtz for this job. Sure, he's very successful, experienced and talented, but that'd be like hiring the pissed off, love sick guy you dumped last year, to watch you while you sleep. There are plenty of other successful webcartoonists who'd help you for less money. Many of which have smaller egos and you know... don't hate you. Don't look at me though, I just burned a crap load of professional bridges with this blog post. As always, thanks for reading. ~Thunt

Here is a Chief Day Cake that is too awesome for words! Click on the images to enlarge them. Thanks so much TakeruDavis for these amazing pics! I'd love to send you some original Goblins art (we'll talk). As always, thanks for reading! And Happy Holidays! ~Thunt

Watching it live at 2pm (Western Canada time) which is a little over an hour from now, so come and hang out. Warning: I plan to drink a lot of rum and most likely be kind of annoying. As always, thanks for reading. ~Thunt

Yup. As always, thanks for reading/ ~Thunt

December 17th is the first anniversary of Chief's  death. If anyone is interested in baking a cake (or something) with a -10 on it and taking a picture, I'll gladly post those up here on the site. RIP Chief. As always, thanks for reading (and thanks Arles, for the image). ~Thunt

Today is Danielle's birthday. I'm taking her out to dinner, then out to a 'not too far away' hotel where we will be trashing the place and jumping on the bed. For her birthday, I'm stepping away from my drawing table for a full 24 hours. This means that there'll be no update on the 16th. I apologise to everyone, but although this girl deserves the world, the only thing she's asked for is to spend some real time with me. I've pushed her birthday into the background in favour of the comic's schedule every year since it started and she's never once complained. Well, not this year. Furthermore, I'll be needed to put together a Christmas for Danielle and our two sons and then spend a few days at her parent's for the holiday season. All of this makes my usual seven day work week to battle the deadlines quite impossible. So here's the deal... For the rest of December, Goblins will update twice. It'll update December 20th, then again on December 30th. Once January starts, I'll be updating on the usual Tuesday/Friday schedule. Thanks for your patience and for reading. Merry Christmas and happy holidays! ~Thunt

Live broadcast of my drawing. As always, thanks for reading. ~Thunt