Webcomic / Goblin Hollow

Goblin Hollow is a Furry comic by Ralph Hayes, Jr. (also known for Tales of the Questor and Nip and Tuck).

It stars Ben Bruin, his wife Lily (a mountain lion), her younger sister Penny, and a septet of goblins (Sheldon, Velvet, Slick, Zoot, Morty, Gunther and Piff) that Ben inherited along with the old mansion they all live in.

In a previous incarnation, the comic was called Under The Lemon Tree and the goblins weren't goblins, but aspects of Ben's subconscious brought to life (Ex. Sheldon was his intelligence, Velvet his sensitivity, Mort his pessimism, etc.)

---

Goblin Hollow contains examples of:

• Aborted Arc: There were hints of a mysterious past that would explain why someone of Ben's skills and intelligence was basically working as a janitor at a Woolworth's. This seems to have vanished along with the previous continuity.
  • The promised appearance of the Wyrd Kids was abandoned as well, much to the dismay of the readership.
• Author Appeal: RH Junior Ben is an unashamed gun "enthusiast".
• Badass Boast: Ben has one toward old man Feldspar, seen here.
• Big Beautiful Man: How Lily sees Ben.
  • After all, there's more than one way to be sensual and erotic.
• Bilingual Backfire: "Actually I was deciding if I should tell you I speak Navajo..."
• Blah, Blah, Blah: An interesting variation found in this strip.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Or in Penny's case, "Teenage Sister." (Hayes may have been going for "seriously troubled" and missed the mark a bit.)
• Captain Ersatz: Ookami Lobo: Totally not The Joker.
• Character Development: An odd case. When Penny first arrived, she was very much the Bratty Teenage Sister described above. But as time went on, we saw instances of her playing nice with the other kids, showing more good grace about helping out around the arcade, moments of real humor and, most importantly, ferocious protectiveness of her family. Most of the fandom saw her as having matured out of Bratty Teenage Sister and into a grump with some Deadpan Snarker tendencies and a Mama Bear right beneath the surface. The cartoonist, however, still saw her as an ill-behaved brat who needed to A) be brought up short with the kind of real discipline she's never had before, and B) get the dead little sister issues at the root of her troubled personality dealt with.
• Christmas Special: Not in D&D thank you kindly.
• Church Lady: Ben runs into some trouble with a group of Church Ladies objecting to his arcade, whose leader absolutely blows her top when she finds the D&D room. Fortunately their pastor turns out to be a Reasonable Authority Figure who tells them to back off.
• Continuity Reboot: The comic dropped UTLT's Life Embellished tone to more supernatural hijinks, to the point where the older strips were redrawn to give the menagerie their goblin wings.
• Crossover: With Schlock Mercenary - though that turned out to be All Just a Dream.
  • And Ben decided to take the family to the Malarky County Fair.
• Does He Have a Brother?: A goblin wants to marry a woman who skritches him behind the ears. She's married. But does she have a sister?
• Express Delivery: Lily goes from "not even showing" to "about to drop" in the space of two panels (via lampshaded Time Skip).
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Walk about freely. It's covered
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Another Hayes staple.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Ben, by his own words, is of "mixed heritage." What that actually means has yet to be disclosed.
• Hypocrite: The Neighborhood Watch, among others. When they complain about Ben's building, he proves that all of them have extended their own buildings onto his property.
• Indian Burial Ground: Subverted, it's an ancient Indian garbage dump.
• Interspecies Romance: Ben (bear) and Lily (mountain lion)
• Mama Bear: Lily smashed a gargoyle to pieces with her bare claws when one of them almost ate one of the Goblins. Her getting a sledgehammer to deal with the goblin eaters afterwards was a mere formality.
• Mutual Masquerade: Penny finds and hatches a pair of goblin eggs and spends several strips keeping them secret from Ben and Lily, who unbeknownst to her already have seven goblins of their own.
• Mundane Fantastic: Much heavier on the supernatural (or at least the weird) than Nip and Tuck, which takes place in the same universe.
• No Biochemical Barriers: Feline Lily is pregnant with ursine Ben's child.
• Oireland: Tam O'Shanter shakes.
• Our Gargoyles Rock: These ones are natural predators of goblins, and turn to stone whenever someone is looking at them.
• Our Goblins Are Different: Starting with the fact that they're (now) green-colored Funny Cartoon Animals, with bat wings and pointy ears.
• Out Giving Birth, Back in Two Minutes: Lily gives birth between comics.
• Parental Abandonment: You can argue about whether sending Penny to stay with her sister counts or not, but if their parents couldn't guess (or if they did guess, they didn't warn Lily and Ben) that maybe, possibly, in theory, it was not inconceivable that Penny's issues just might have at least some of their source in her best friend's suicide, they were pretty useless anyway.
• Peerless Love Interest: His original intention with Lily. even in Lemon Tree, that changed
• Sexual Karma: Those in the comic who have unmarried sex lives are of questionable moral character, at best. And the good people have really good sex.
• Smelly Skunk: Ronnie, whenever he's scared or surprised.
• Time for Plan B: When Ben tells the Snotworthy Heights snobs politely that if they call it quits, he will too. But when the head Jerkass threatens to sue Ben for everything and anything he can think of, Ben vividly illustrates his backup plan. In blood-curdling detail on how he would turn the leader and his friends from very rich entitled bastards to Land Poor losers.
• Title Drop: "Little sis… welcome to Goblin Hollow."
• Trick Dialogue: Penny on the phone, without actually having dialed.
• Tyrannical Homeowners' Association: When Ben moved in to Lovecraft Manor, the homeowners association, who also effectively ran the zoning board, heaped all kinds of ordinance complaints against Ben's mansion/video game arcade. Up until the posse found some incriminating photos, and Ben discovered that due to a drunken surveyor he technically owned large chunks of their plots, and then he threatened to turn his land into a trailer park if they didn't give up.
• You All Meet in a Cell: After the players complained that meeting in an inn was too cliche.
• Uncle Pennybags: Ben was able to start his arcade due to an inheritance from his Uncle Phineas(a Shout-Out to P.T.Barnum)... who rather than leaving him money, left him his extensive collection... of arcade games.
• Weakened by the Light: Downplayed with gargoyles. Light doesn't directly harm them, but because they are immobilized by observation, they become far less dangerous in a well-lit area.
• With This Herring: Averted for an in-comic RPG session, because the GM thinks it makes more sense that way.
  "The Darned Good Reason rule. As in 'nobody becomes an adventurer without a darned good reason to think they'll survive it'."
  That and I got tired of Fred needing to write up a new character twice a session.

---