Posted April 16, 2018 at 1:00 pm

The comic is currently in a three page arc that has Idle explaining how she deals with her curse that requires her to die once a day. A couple times now, the comic has touched upon the physical pain she feels during each death, but right now, she's getting more into the feeling of actually dying. Her feelings of passing from living to dead and how she's learned the best ways to, as she puts it, "let go" during that transition.

 I want this skill of hers to be understood by the reader. However, it occured to me last night that her explanation could potentially be seen as the comic advocating suicide. At the time of writing this, no one has brought up such a concern (as far as I know), but I think that suicide is an incredibly serious issue and I'd hate for anyone to think that Idle's description of a "beautiful death" is something that it isn't.

 Idle's skill of "letting go" is about seeing something beautiful in something normally seen as scary. Yet at the same time, not devaluing the legitimacy of that fear. I still have one more page that sums up her unique skill, but it is important to me to get the message out right away.

 Idle's curse and how she deals with it has nothing to do with suicide. It is not my intention to glamorize suicide or make it seem attractive in any way.

If you're going through something difficult and you need help, here are some contact options...

In the U.S. - Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or the National Hopeline Network at 1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433).

In the UK and Ireland - Call the Samaritans at 116 123

In Australia - Call Lifeline Australia at 13 11 14

Canada Suicide Prevention Services

 

And although I'm not an expert on the subject and can't replace professional help, feel free to tweet to me if this recent arc in my comic has caused you to feel anything confusing or distressing.

Thank you.

-Tarol

Posted January 5, 2018 at 5:15 pm

So I'm alive and it appears that I'll be staying that way for a long while. Here are the details of how that went down...

 

On Saturday December 23rd, I was sitting at my desk, drawing stuff. I'd had a pretty bad headache for most of that day, but I get a lot of headaches, so I didn't think much about it. Suddenly, I got super dizzy and nauseous and my headache kicked into a high gear that was new to me. My right eye crossed and gave me double vision. I kept rubbing the eye to try to correct it, but it stayed crossed until it corrected itself a few minutes later. During that time, I sort of... fainted I guess? I remember going limp in my chair, unable to move, but my eyes were kinda open and I was aware. Once that all passed, I was feeling really sick and under a lot of pain, so I laid down for about 45 minutes before getting up again. This was the start of a migraine unlike anything I'd ever felt, that would continue for the next 2 weeks.

 

With the pain continuing the next day, Danielle drove me to the hospital where they gave me an I.V. drip of Maxeran. We went home, with my headache slightly lessened. The morning after that, we returned to the hospital where they gave me a CT Scan and sat me in a chair, explaining that it'll take them about an hour to get the results looked at by a Neurologist who was in Vancouer (I live in a tiny town that is a ferry trip and a couple hours drive away from the bigger cities). The nurse explained that the Neurologist handles scan reports in order of severity, not in the order they arrive, so it may be longer than an hour.

 

After about 10 minutes of waiting, a nurse arrived with a wheelchair for me and started wheeling me into a private room filled with a lot of expensive looking, high-tech equipment. As we were entering the room I asked if anything was found on my CT scan.

"Well, we found some bleeding in your brain so we need to decide how to proceed."

"You mean like... aneurysm type stuff?"

"Yeah."

 Now, I don't know a ton about brain aneurysms, but I know they commonly kill those who get them. Y'know what, here's Sterling Archer to explain better than I could...

 

They quickly decided to have me immediately helicoptered to Vancouver General Hospital, where there would be much more powerful scanners that would be able to pick up more info on my condition. During all of this, Danielle had yet to shed a single tear. As soon as I was wheeled around a corner on a stretcher (Danielle couldn't come with us on the helicopter), I asked someone to go back and help her. I knew that she was holding it in, to stop from freaking me out and the second they wheeled me away, she was going to break down. It was one of the helicopter pilots who darted back and hugged her. That man's name was Graham. Graham was amazing.

 

After being injected with some kind of radio active dye and being put through a CT Scan with VGH's much bigger machine, they discovered that what had happened, was a subarachnoid hemorrhage. A doctor said that I was very lucky to still have an active mind without any confusion as to who I was or what was going on.

 

After a few days of close observation with the nurses taking bloodwork and asking me every 1 to 4 hours if I knew my name, the date, asking me to identify objects in the room, etc (by the way, one morning when the nurse asked me if I knew my name, I said in a very serious tone, "I'm Batman". I couldn't resist.) Anyways, they wanted to do an angiogram just to make absolute certain that they knew everything about the hemmorage. This is where they put some kinda camera thingy into an artery at your groin and snake it up through your body and into your brain looking super duper closely at how it's doing. I remember the doctor casually telling me that there was a small chance that I could have a stroke during this process. I know, right? I was pretty damn scared.

 

Okay, so here's where it got really weird.

 

While looking for more info on my subarachnoid hemorrhage, they stumbled upon something else. Something unrelated to the hemmorage. They'd found a dural fistula. From what I understand, I think this is where an artery in the brain is growing into an outer layer and becomes a ticking timebomb that will burst at any moment. It's fatal and from what I've been told, can only be discovered with one of these scary angiogram operations.

 

From here on out I was no longer talking to one Neurologist. From that point on it was always a team of 4 or 5 of them at once. I was very seriously explained that given the severity of the fistula, I had a 10% to 15% chance of dying per year. If I hadn't had that extremely rare hemmorage that amazingly, didn't kill me or do any damage to my brain, no one would have discovered the fistula. I would have suddenly just dropped dead within the next handful of years. As a friend put it, I'm clearly made of natural 20s.

 

So I was scheduled for some serious brain surgery to fix the dural fistula. Surgery that, again, could give me a stroke on the operating table. But all went well and after 13 days in the hospital, most of it feeling the worst pain I've ever felt in my life (I admit to crying noises that I didn't know I could make), I was starting to improve and I was finally discharged.

 

Danielle stayed by my side the entire time. I slept about an hour each night, never more than 10 minutes at a time. She slepted only slightly more than I did, focusing 100% of her attention on me. Between the two of us, her experience was the worse one. I'd rather be the one going through it, than have to watch her go through it and I know she feels the same way.

 

When we finally got home last night, I could barely stand with a cane. But we put on a good, slow Ed Sheeran song and quietly slow danced together, sobbing. We'd made it. With all of the possible outcomes of this, this was the best one and it had happened.

 

There was awhile there in the hospital that Danielle and I had both accepted that I wouldn't be surviving this, as everything at the time suggested there wasn't much of a chance of any other outcome. In the middle of the night, I carefully went through a few future scenes from Goblins that she didn't have all of the details on. We both kept breaking down in tears as I spoke. She recorded what I was saying, with her phone. Luckily, she won't need those recordings, though we decided to keep them anyways.

 

So there it is. My story of how I was dunked in concentrated luck. More than I deserved. Thank you so much for all of the kinds words of support. Currently, I'm still in quite a bit of pain and I'm not up to drawing just yet. But I promise that the moment I'm able, comic updates will return. And since you amazing people funded the Goblins: Animated mega trailer, I'll not have to focus on that campaign along with drawing the pages. We'll see what that does to update frequency.

 

If you missed out on the Indiegogo campaign, you can still grab yourself some loot if you like. And again, thank you!

 

For everything. -Tarol

My Twitter

Danielle's Twitter

Posted January 2, 2018 at 5:00 am

Hello fellow Goblinites. This is Konstantin aka Duke, a friend of Danielle and Tarol's and their "tech dude" so to speak.

As you might have heard already, Tarol suffered an aneurysm about a week ago before Christmas and he had to be rushed to a big hospital via helicopter.

That was a scary shock to all of us, most of all Danielle who's been at his side ever since. Well... and Tarol himself.

(Hence, me doing the blog post updates for now.)

Tarol is in a lot of pain, but lucid and has been recovering over the last few days.

Without throwing around too much medical mumbo jumbo, he'll undergo surgery today in order to get fixed what caused the aneurysm in the first place and what would pose a threat for future events.
Chances are very good that things will go just as planned, but as with all surgeries, there is some risk to it. 
Albeit a very low risk.

Whenever there is something worthwhile to say, I'll keep you all updated as best I can, by updating this post instead of posting a new one, to keep all information regarding the situation consolidated here.

Obviously, comic updates are on hiatus for the time being.

If you want to send well wishes, I think the best way would be via Danielle's Twitter (@DragonTurtle) since Tarol has no internet access in the hospital, let alone should he strain himself with devices right now. Danielle will read those to him tho.

On a much lighter note, since Tarol didn't get the chance to update you here in time, the Goblins Animated Indiegogo Campaign was a success and got funded at 105% of its campaign goal! 
Matt and Phil are already at work to make it a reality! (A friggin awesome one, I should add!)
You can and should continue to contribute to the campaign tho, since there are stretch goals to snatch!

That's it from me so far.

Thanks for reading and a Happy New (and most importantly, healthy) Year to all of you! <3

-Duke

Posted November 19, 2017 at 1:29 pm

I know, I know. Lately, all I've been talking about is this Goblins: Animated campaign. Believe me, I know how that can feel. I've followed actors or comedians who for a time, talk non-stop about their new movie or book. I know how it feels to be tired of hearing about that one project so much.

That being said, this is something that I and others have been working hard on for almost two years. It all comes down to this moment and I admit, it's genuinely terrifying. I'm terrible at this business stuff. Promotion, marketing, demographics... it's just not me.

So this is me simply asking for your help. This is a chance for Goblins to explode into something massive, but I simply can't do it without you. If I can trouble you to throw in a couple bucks and pass the word out, that'd mean everything to me. It's up in the air as to how we'll do. As of writing this, here's where we are...

However this all turns out, my goal is to be able to focus a lot more of my time on the comic. I understand that I say that a lot and the updates are still slow these days. I also understand why the angry emails about the slow updates are written. By creating Goblins, I've essentially asked you to feel some level of passion toward it. So it'd be hypocritical of me to blame those of you who are angry about the slower updates.

Whether you're able to support Goblins: Animated or not, I'm really thankful to you for simply reading my work. Thank you.

-Tarol

If you have any questions or concerns, you can reach me through my Twitter or my email.

Posted November 12, 2017 at 7:03 pm

 

The Indiegogo Goblins: Animated campaign!

 

First and formost, I want to offer every ounce of thanks that I have, to those that jumped in to support Goblins: Animated, over at Kickstarter. Thank you so much!

We've looked at the campaign and listened to the feedback we were getting from you. We decided that the best thing to do, was to cancel this campaign and restart it over at Indiegogo, with some much needed improvements. With these improvements, we're very confident that we'll be able to bring this cartoon series to life.

So please stop on by to help us make this a reality!

Thank you!

Tarol's Twitter

 

Posted October 25, 2017 at 7:54 pm

EDIT: We're relaunching the campaign on Nov. 14! Click here for details! A proper Blog post is coming soon.

Click the picture below to check out the Kickstarter. Any help you can offer would mean the world to us! Thank you so much!

Also...

There will be a different quest to disclose each MYSTERY CAST MEMBER. Quest One, which is to obtain 1000 Facebook likes, is almost complete! You can get there through the link above or go directly to Quest One, here.

And thank you!

-Tarol

Posted September 27, 2017 at 9:56 pm

Edit: The title of this blog originally called this a "trailer". That was my bad. Technically, this is not a trailer, but an animatic. Sorry about that.

-Tarol

Posted August 30, 2017 at 12:48 am

For the past year or so, we've been working in secret (well, semi-secret) on Goblins the animated series. It's still a ways off from being released, but so much work has been done and those involved with this are all really excited.

The series aims to turn the comic into a professional, high quality cartoon. Co-writing it with me, are Matt King and Phil LaMarr (their names link to their IMDB pages) who will also be doing voice work in the show, along with a list of other big names voicing the various characters. Aside from Matt and Phil, I don't think I'm allowed to officially name any of the actors, the animation studio, who's doing the music, etc. At this point, I'd rather err on the side of caution since this whole thing has like... lawyers involved with contracts and percentages and lots of grown-up stuff like that.

Very soon, a sort of rough draft trailer will be going public. The animation has an unfinished look to it, but it showcases the talents of everyone involved, really well.

There is more info to come out about dates, season one, funding, etc. Follow any of us on Twitter to be kept up to date as new info comes out.

Matt's Twitter

Phil's Twitter

Tarol's Twitter

The Goblins Card Game

The reason for my slow updating lately has been because of this and The Goblins Card Game (otherwise known as Goblins: Alternate Realities) which as of yesterday, I'm super excited to finally be finished. Like 'Goblins Animated', the card game is still a ways off from going public, but after years of single handedly drawing hundreds of cards, designing, playtesting, and designing some more, I have a finished, balanced card game prototype. I know that a lot of you have a ton of questions about the game and I'm working on a webpage that will showcase the cards, the artwork, the rules, a FAQ and offer contact info.

My life is a swirly, crazy mess these days, but my goals remain...

1. Don't let down the people who are owed a copy of that game.

2. Don't let down the people who have attached their names to Goblins: Animated.

3. Don't let down the Goblins readers who have been so supportive for years.

I'm just glad that I can finally be open and public about goal number two! :)

-Tarol

Posted March 20, 2017 at 2:09 pm
So I'm back to working condition after my surgery. I have another one in April, but that's probably going to be super minor and won't cut into my work time. But at this point, I'm able to work without hindrance, so there's nothing stopping me from going back to posting updates every Monday. Thanks for your patience everyone and I hope you enjoy today's update. -Tarol
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