01 April 2025, Repair the Wire!

[criteriondungeon]

Isn't the fiancée from the US? Was she one of the people Elli was staying with in Alabama before she had to return to Canada? A marriage that quickly may be for the purpose of grounds to sponsor fiancée for immigration. Canada does have common law, but it's harder to prove.

[Krulle]

Yes, she is from the USoA.

Also, you reminded me of a tweet a while ago:

[samharbor]

Welp, she sent out a link to her PayPal and is asking for more money, threatening that she has to choose between estrogen or food.
-edit- looks like she deleted the post.

[Krulle]

The general post of estrogen or food is still there. Just no link to any fundme or similar.

[Generic]

Welp, she sent out a link to her PayPal and is asking for more money, threatening that she has to choose between estrogen or food.
-edit- looks like she deleted the post.

Where did she post this?

[Krulle]

Likely on Bluesky. I have different sleep times, so I did not see any paypal message.

But the post of "estrogen or food" is linked in my previous message.
There is a reply from s.o. in that thread, telling Elli just to PM her.
Possibly that's the reason why the paypal link disappeared.

[samharbor]

It was on bluesky, it was only up for a few minutes, saying she was too nervous to draw tonight and shared a PayPal link asking for donations to buy her groceries, and in exchange she would be "squillions of grateful". Someone replied "restart the counter" and she replied saying "fair response" deleted her post and blocked them. Then she changed the topic to her wedding.

-edit- remembered it was squillions not squiggles

[BiggestBlackest]

It makes me feel a bit queasy and bad about myself, the way my interest in this comic has almost completely flipped from wanting to see how the plot gets resolved / what happens to the characters to a prurient fascination with Elli’s life and decisions. The former is barely there, there’s been very little from the comic to sustain it. The latter is very real, and definitely the main reason why I keep coming back.

I should just stop looking. I’m not proud of how much I want to know what happens next.

[Krulle]

I am still here for the comic, and the resolution of the story.

I am still only marginally vested in the author's life, although I find that interesting. (meaning: it doesn't impact my decision to come to the forums.)
Other authors whose work I follow share much less about their life, nor does their life seems to be anywhere near the situation of being so "problematic" w.r.t. to opinion of other people.

I simply don't care for her life's decisions. She must make her own and find her own happiness.
What I find interesting are the reports we get about her having issues being in areas where "queer" is a reason to be physically assaulted (Alabama), and other issues she has because she made decision in a try to be happier. What I find interesting is the interaction she reports of. Interactions which are unnecessarily problematic because other people can't put the happiness of others above their "impression of cultural norms".
I wish her the best, and lots of happiness.
But her life's decision include making this comic, and this comes with a certain degree of financial instability.
And her slow publication speed does not work in her favour.
So, to compensate she tries living in the forest, which brings its own problems...

Anyway, mid July she'll get married again.
I hope it works in her favour regarding happiness and everything.
And bring her peace of mind, so the work starts flowing easier, which indirectly (over a longer period of time) will also help attracting her reader base back, and very maybe new readers.

[Alarikun]

I am still here for the comic, and the resolution of the story.

I am... still here for the comic, but at this point, I am not optimistic about it getting a proper conclusion.

The rate at which we get updates in worse than Order of the Stick, and that is saying something. I know the art is more complex than OoTS, but it's still wild, given Rich's update schedule.

I'm not trying to hate on Elli here, and I understand that her life has been difficult these past few years, but I just find it harder and harder to care about these characters and their story, and bother coming back to check in.

[Writes-critically]

My opinion is this: nothing of substance has been happening in this comic for a long while now, and it would be difficult to describe what exactly should happen at this point in order to achieve conclusion of all plotlines in a logical and satisfying way. Whoever still follows the comic is doing so mostly out of habit and/or slight nostalgia for the older chapters. Seems like this is all mostly a side project to keep people around so that they can pay some donations whenever a new fundraising happens

[Caimera]

I am definitely still in this out of nostalgia and habit. I remember reading this and waiting for updates on the story when the forgath, Minmax and kin was exploring the multiverse dungeon. That seems so insanely long ago now. And at this point I don't know why I even bother. But it's a very morbid curiosity of whether the story will actually turn around and become truly worth reading and investing in truly or waiting for the blog posts that'll explain if something new is going on or if it's the last update for "reasons"

[Generic]

Habit.
I would never pick this comic up today.

Most glaring problem is the speed. We're getting 15 or so pages per year. That is 150 pages in a decade. I don't think it will wrap up in 150 pages.

How many years do you think Ellipsis will keep this up? Does she have another decade in her?

[Alarikun]

Habit.
I would never pick this comic up today.

Most glaring problem is the speed. We're getting 15 or so pages per year. That is 150 pages in a decade. I don't think it will wrap up in 150 pages.

How many years do you think Ellipsis will keep this up? Does she have another decade in her?

Yeah, I have to agree.

I've read a lot of comics that have dragged on like this. They typically tapered off without a satisfying ending, or are literally still ongoing to this day, 10-20 years later.

I really hope that maybe she will get into a stable life situation, and can start updating regularly again. I mean, as far as I know, Goblins IS her primary source of income. If she started putting out pages regularly, I feel like any money issues would be eased, if not resolved.

[Krulle]

If you want a slow comic:

Outsider (update history)
(spoilered, as it is irrelevant to the current discussion)

► Show Spoiler

Sci-Fi comic, background PC rendered, but characters mostly hand-drawn....
Oct. 2001: first update, last update (finished page 226): Oct. 2024. 22 Years for 226 pages... ( 0,85 pages/month until last update; 0,83 pages/month incl. April 2025)
Forums are astonishingly active, also because the Creator is also active on the forum.
But Jim Francis does not rely on the comic as his income. He only rather recently created a Patreon, and there he has reached page 276; patreon pages are preview pages (WIP). So another 50 pages "pay-per-view". He had a break on the patreon for a while, because his backlog converting them to full-colour full background became too large.
But apparently he started creating patreon pages again, despite having announced he would not do so.
Serves me right for not checking the patreon.
But it shows, that the update speed is important to keep readers.
And that lower art requirements does increase output speed.
A sixth of Outsider pages are now WIP only....
(page 227 WIP is from May 2022 ...)

Honestly, most of us here started reading the comic when the art was a lot less alluring.
And many of us also read Order of the Stick. And the art there is..... Not nearly comparable to Elli's.
The story was what attracted "us" to Goblins. And the art should support the story.
Currently, the art is going far too detailed (which was always Elli's thing), but since she does full shading and texturing, she takes far too long to finalise a page.
Maybe look at the pages as they were when she updated twice a week, and decide "that's good enough", and try to limit herself to that.

But perfectionists are just that. Never finished.


BTW: just checked Elli's Patreon: 454 paying members *3$/page (minimum) minus Patreon fee should make at least 1200$/page. She should easily be fine with 3 pages/month. That's still less than one page per week. And then the fourth week is for hormone treatments... (Although I have no real idea of what those cost on the West-side of the pond.)
Financial worries don't make easy work...
And Danielle is still listed as creator as well.