Abuse Goblin

2026webcomicactive

Published September 28, 2026

Abuse Goblin is a character from a webcomic series by artist Foolibuster (Vost) that debuted on X in January 2026, depicting a chained goblin abused by a man in a green shirt and cargo shorts as an outlet for his frustrations. The comics spawned a wave of fan art, redraws and rescue-themed reactions across X and Reddit throughout 2026.

webcomic memescharacter archetype memesdark humor memesfan art memes2026 memes

Overview

Abuse Goblin, also known as Vost's goblin, is the central character in a running webcomic gag by artist Foolibuster. Each strip follows a nearly identical beat, a bespectacled man in a green shirt and cargo shorts recounts to his therapist how he mistreated the goblin he keeps chained to a radiator at home1. The therapist's dismissal or discomfort is the punchline setup, and the final panel usually returns to the goblin, who has a black eye and a resigned expression2.

What pushed the strips past a single joke was the specificity of the abuse in each installment, microwaving the goblin, killing the goblin's pet cockroach, escalating scenarios that fans treat as horror comedy3. The recurring format made the goblin recognizable enough that other artists started drawing him being rescued, healed or avenged, flipping the tone from cruelty to protection4. The goblin himself became the meme, more so than any single strip.

Origin & Background

Platform
X / Twitter (viral spread on Reddit)
Creator
Foolibuster
Date
2026

On January 23rd, 2026, webcomic artist Vost, posting as @Foolibuster on X, uploaded the first Abuse Goblin comic1. The strip shows the abuser telling his therapist he uses an "abuse goblin" as an outlet for his emotions, the therapist brushing him off, then the man returning home to the black-eyed goblin chained to a radiator with the line, "Guess who embarrassed me at therapy todaaaaay?"2. The post pulled in over 112,000 likes and 4.3 million views across the following eight months1.

Foolibuster kept the bit going with a second comic on February 2nd, 2026 about microwaving the goblin3, followed by additional strips on March 24th, April 4th and May 5th that pushed the series' engagement well past six figures per post by late September2.

How It Spread

The comics picked up traction on X through quote-tweets treating the goblin as a genuine emotional gut-punch. On May 5th, 2026, @BlutBaer quoted a strip with the line, "honest to GOD i dont think ive ever felt the way i do when i look at the abuse goblin comics," a post that pulled over 52,000 likes in four months5. That same day the comic jumped to Reddit when user Weeblord42069help submitted it to r/MoralityScaling, where it drew more than 13,000 upvotes6.

Remix communities followed. On June 6th, 2026, a redraw in the r/coaxedintoasnafu house style hit that subreddit and cleared 2,000 upvotes7. Fan art started reframing the goblin as a rescue subject, most notably an August 14th r/comics post by Astrid_Regndottir about an old witch adopting the goblin, which hit over 34,000 upvotes in a week8. A redraw crossing the format with the anime Frieren by @Gin_San31 landed on August 17th and pulled over 16,000 likes9.

Vost's own strips kept driving the cycle. An August 24th comic in which the abuser kills the goblin's pet cockroach pulled over 42,000 likes2, and the next day fan artist @Blkkites replied with a piece showing a woman holding both the goblin and the cockroach with the caption, "That is not true. His pet is alive and well. So is the goblin. Everyone is okay," a rebuttal-as-fan-art that itself gathered thousands of likes10.

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