This is sort of a "coming out of the closet" blog post for me. No, I'm not gay (my apologies to the gay community for stealing their phrase) but I am letting you in on a bit of a secret. I am an ASMR experiencer. Put simply, ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) is an strong, euphoric sensation that often overwhelms the experiencer. It is caused by outside triggers that vary depending on the person. These triggers can be auditory, such as a person's voice, clicking or tapping noises or even the sound of someone eating or chewing gum. Triggers can also be visual, like seeing someone concentrate on something such as sculpting. The euphoric sensation happens whether it is welcomed or not and as far as I know, most experiencers have little to no control over it, though I have read rumours about people who can "will" it to happen. It is important to understand that this sensation is 100% non-sexual. During the rare times that I've tried to explain this condition to other people, it's been difficult to convince non-experiencers that this isn't a sexual experience. Nothing about this is arousing or fetishistic. So what is it? Basically, the experiencer will notice a trigger. Let's say that it's someone on a bus chewing gum or perhaps it's someone tapping their fingers on their desk behind you at school. It might even be the sound of a staticy phone connection. At that point, the experiencer will feel an immensely pleasurable "tingly" feeling that sort of crawls across the inside of the scalp. If the trigger continues, the sensation grows. Personally, I would spend this time sitting quite still, waiting for the feeling to pass and hoping to various Gods that no one notices that I'm tripping out on what I imagine heroin might feel like. This sounds really weird, right? Sounds like I'm kind of insane? This is exactly why I've spent my entire life keeping my mouth shut and why (I'm guessing) most of the other ASMR experiencers keep their mouths shut too. So why does this happen? Right now, no one knows. There are a ton of theories, but literally, no one on the planet can explain why this happens. I mean, there seems to be no connection between the triggers and what I'm guessing is some sort of massive dopamine release. I've been triggered by watching someone use a pen to do math. It was something about the way the pen moved. Yeah... I'm shrugging my shoulders and rolling my eyes at how ridiculous this sounds, too. Some people online talk about how they've seemingly dedicated their lives to finding as many of these triggers as they can. Some people "do it" recreationally. Some people, like myself, mostly try to avoid triggers. But I think that all ASMR experiencers are very curious as to why this happens. Sometimes, when I've tried to explain this to people, they've said... "I think I've felt that before". I'm pretty sure that if you think you might have experienced it, you haven't. The people who have experienced ASMR, have experienced it a lot throughout their lives and they usually respond with "Oh my God YES! You get that too!? What the hell IS that?! I thought I was the only one!" or something along those lines. So there we have it. You all know that I'm crazy. The secret that I've guarded so closely for my entire life is out there. Also... I'm Batman. ASMR Research & Support As always, thanks for reading. ~Thunt

Yes, I sure am. As always, thanks for reading. ~Thunt

Throughout yesterday and today, I've been largely bed ridden with one of those nasty migraines. The kind that leave you reading the bottle that your painkillers come in, to find out if you've passed the maximum daily amount that you can take. The kind of migraine that then has you on Google to find out just how important that maximum daily amount is and whether it's okay to pass it a bit. You know... those kinds of migraines. If you popped into my live broadcasting yesterday, you would have caught my complaining about my head as I scratched out what was meant to be today's comic. Unfortunately, I've spent a lot of time buried under my pillow whining like a small girl. Not the kick ass kind of small girl, like Newt from Aliens, but the horrible kind that you just want to strangle. Like Winona Ryder from Alien3. The comic will continue this Friday. As always, thanks for reading. ~Thunt

Cool? Good. As always, thanks for reading. ~Thunt

I'm drawing live for a few hours only today. I have to stop when Danielle's Mum gets here. She'll be staying with us for Canada Day. As always, thanks for watching. ~Thunt

Doing nonsensical crap live on cam. EDIT: I'm doing it again (June 27th). As always, thanks for reading/watching. ~Thunt

Drawing & colouring live while talking about how Calgary Comic Con went. I'll tell you what your favourite webcomic authors are REALLY like! As always, thanks for reading. ~Thunt

Because I'm leaving for the Calgary Comic Con, I won't be able to update the comic until the 24th. I'm leaving for the con on Thursday morning, which doesn't allow me the minimum 48 hours needed to get Friday's page finished. Furthermore, I won't be back from the con until Monday night, which certainly doesn't give me enough time to do Tuesday's update. I'll tell ya what though. If you guys want to send me a fan comic (here's my email), I'll look 'em over on Monday night and post one of them in place of Tuesday's update. I'll even send the chosen artist an original Tempts Fate panel. Please make your fan comic one page only. For those of you who are laughing, screaming, rolling their eyes or peeing themselves over my horrible, horrible laziness and general irresponsibility,  please allow me to respond to you ahead of time. "Marvel or DC would have fired you by now." ... Yes they would have, since they would not like the fact that I'd have sued them for giving me the work of seven employees. "LFG and LICD would never pull this crap." ... Lar deSouza is a god in the industry with a scwillion years experience under his beard. I can't do what he does in the same way that I can't fight as well as Bruce Lee. And yes, even Lar has missed updates before. "Goblins is circling the drain because of this crap." ... It sure is. It's been circling the drain for six years now, with more readers every year gathering in preparation for my inevitable failure. I've been two to ten hours late for a crap load of updates in the last many months and on rare occasions like this convention, I've missed an update (in this case, two updates). However, I have never, ever been late or missed an update because of laziness. Every single update time for the past six years was genuinely and sincerely the best I could do without cutting any corners in the artwork. Anyways, there's my whiny rant. :P I'll see you guys in Calgary and I can't wait to see what awesome comics you create! As always, thanks for reading. ~Thunt

This weekend is the Calgary Comic Con (which is actually called the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo) and Danielle and I will be there as guests! We'll be at booth #1118 (here's a map) with books, original artwork, and a few other bits of loot, including the new poster. Come and hang out for a bit! Note: A notable percentage of people at cons seem to think that they're "bothering" me by talking to me. This is a load of crap. Come and say hi. I promise that our awkward, nervous conversations will be better than the awkward, nervous conversations you have with any other comic author at the con. EDIT: Also, I'm drawing live. As always, thanks for reading! ~Thunt

Pencilling the next comic live. You will have no freakin' idea what is going on until it goes up. As always, thanks for reading. ~Thunt