The Lisp Goblin Interview
Tell me you're a goblin without telling me you're a goblin...
There have been rumors of a goblin roaming the streets of Columbus, Ohio, leaving behind vague messages of its arrival. Stories of random encounters, sightings; questions about what it all could mean…
You always hear about these sorts of things, but you never expect to have to confront them yourself. On one particularly eventful Saturday night (June 8, 2024), we were faced with our own goblin encounter, and though we lived to tell the tale, we were forever changed…
All jokes aside, we were lucky enough to get an interview with the creator behind the project “Lisp Goblin”, a local graffiti artist who has made a name for themself through their unique approach to graffiti art! Their branding is top-notch, from their website, their merch, and especially their public appearances, where they can be found in full goblin form (pointed ears, green skin, the whole thing).
Being in the same room as the Goblin is life-changing. We imagine it’s comparable to how the guy who first discovered King Tut felt. During our own Goblin Encounter™ (not actually trademarked), we had the Goblin share their story with us, which we now recount to you in full!
LISP GOBLIN
Goblin Origins
So, what is Lisp Goblin? What’s in the name?
Goblin: Lisp Goblin started in 2023, January. Maybe a little bit before that, but, officially, the Instagram started in 2023, January. That kind of included me pasting goblin faces around town: Cincinnati, Columbus. The “Hell is Real” sign happened around the same time, if you know about that.
I started with just “Lisp”. It's a graffiti pseudonym and it's kind of referring to a lot of famous graffiti artists, like KAWS, [where] whatever they tag or write becomes their name. I thought a cool tag to write would be “Lisp”, because it's like a speech impediment, even though you're not writing it with a speech impediment.
I’m kind of satirical about graffiti in some ways. I like to think that the graffiti I’m doing is post graffiti art, post street art, where all that has already happened. So, how can we do it in a new, interesting, silly way? I kind of come at it from like a silly, goofy, mischievous persona. That kind of brings in the goblin aspect of things, where a goblin is just a good character to describe the vibes or the energy I'm trying to put out.
Traditional goblins stereotypes would be, like, goofy, weird, a little bit evil, maybe mischievous. You’re not really sure what they're up to. Are they underground? Are there a bunch of them? Are they ugly? Yes. They're really gross and ugly and they smell real bad. So it just felt like the perfect graffiti character!
Ian: When did you first start painting yourself green? That’s defining, you know. I don't see other people doing that.
Goblin: I would say that started about a year ago. I did a photo shoot with a homie- and with art I like whenever things are multidimensional. So I was like, “What if there was a fine artist or a street artist that's not a person? What if it's a cartoon?”. Kind of like the Gorillaz: there's characters and they have [different] personas. There's a story behind it.
So I was like, “Let's create a character that has a story, and then I can actually dress like this person in real life, so people feel like it's real”. It's immersive! Like, “Oh, there’s a real goblin in town, I can really see it! I saw him and he was crawling on some rafters” or, “I saw him out in that garage” or, “Oh shit, I saw him chasing cars”. People can create their own stories with it.
Have you been recognized as the Lisp Goblin in your day-to-day life?
Goblin: Well, there’ve been a couple of people that have worn the Lisp Goblin stuff. So, Lisp Goblin is sort of multiple people. But I'm the artist who started it… or am I?
Sometimes I'll wear the garments or, like, the pieces, the fashion statements, the airbrushed clothes. I'll wear those in public and people will be like, “Oh, that's a Lisp Goblin piece. That’s pretty cool”. And I'll be like, “I'm him”, and they're like, “No way! I heard he was-” and then they’ll tell a story that's totally not true. And I'm like, “Yeah, sure.”
Have you ever gotten in trouble with the law?
Goblin: Actually when I’m all dressed up, they usually don’t bother me. It's like clowning, like the concept of clowning- being in makeup and acting a fool, playing a character.
You can’t do crime if you’re a goblin.
Goblin: It's like, I can do crime, but they're not going to think I'm doing crime because I'm all dressed up. If I was to do something uber viral on the internet- like hundreds of millions of views- that was super illegal, and then I was out in the goblin makeup, they would probably be like, “Oh, that's him”.
Personal Background
How’d you get into graffiti?
Goblin: I was obsessed with it since I was like 15 or 16. In high school, when everyone was like, “Oh, what are you going to be? An engineer, a doctor?” I was like, “Oh, I can do whatever I want”. And I was seeing muralists and street artists and [people] like Banksy, David Choe. Big inspiration from things like “Obey” by Shepard Fairey. Like, just wheat pasting and putting his own billboards out and building a multi-million dollar brand off of just cheaply putting up stickers. It's a very powerful tool.
So, as a young artist who’s thinking, “I want to be a fine artist. I'd like to be a person who does fashion”, street art for me was just like, “I can skip having someone market for me, I can do all the marketing for myself. I can build the story I want to”. With a lot of fine artists and young artists, they'll make the art, it's really good, and sometimes it's good enough to stand out for itself and get famous. But a lot of the art that stands out is the stuff that you give context for and that people have stories with.
How long have you been making art in general?
Goblin: I’ve been making art my whole life. I've been drawing since I was little little. There's one moment when I was like four or five I remember… you know those hay rides, on the tractors, where they pull hay? I was on one of those with a sketchbook and I remember just drawing something and being like, “I'm going to do this for the rest of my life”. I was, like, transported to a different dimension, kind of flow state vibes. I can always remember when I'm in the flow state. When I get back into it, it’s kind of like I’m there with myself, no matter how old or young I am. So, I feel like I've always done artwork, but I really committed to it out of high school.
How do you tap into the flow state?
Goblin: For me it's drawing. I've just drawn enough to where it's meditative, where I just go for it and after like 10 minutes, it kind of just goes. Also sleeping, like, sleeping in or falling asleep. You can kind of tap into your subconscious and that's helped me a lot. It's called automatic drawing, where you just kind of draw random shit and you tap into your subconscious. Surrealism kind of comes from that if you know anything about surrealism or pop surrealism. So, yeah, that's kind of how I do it. Or music! Shout out music.
Graffiti Talk
Is there a big graffiti scene in Columbus?
Goblin: Yeah. It's not as big or as prevalent as some cities out West, or like New York, of course. But the longer I’ve been here, the longer I've seen graffiti artists, the more I've seen, the more I learn who they are, and the more I get connected to it. It's a healthy scene, a scene that goes back pretty much to the beginning of graffiti with some really old pieces. There are some real old heads here too.
What’s the story with the “Hell is Real” sign?
Goblin: I was driving by it and I had a wheat paste in the back of my car and I was like, “It's a devil. That's about hell. Let's put it together”. I’d been trying to do street art in the Midwest, so it just kind of fit for me. It pissed off a lot of people. It also got a lot of clout, so good marketing. Shout out the “Hell is Real” sign, though! Represents a lot for the Midwest.
(Editor’s Note: If you’re interested in learning more about this, here’s a full article dedicated to this story )
What's the story behind the goblins on the bridge above Summit? Do you know why they got X-ed out?
Goblin: I do not. There are a lot of graffiti-heads in Columbus, so I think it’s like street art versus, like, people that do wheat pasting. It's kind of seen as too easy. It's not technically illegal, so if you hit spots that taggers or graffiti artists or people who write could hit, they could get mad and just X you out. One thing about graffiti in general is that it's like 50% gossip, 50% actually doing things. Like half of it is just the stories that people say. So, your guess is as good as mine. Let's come up with a story, you know?
Other Creators
I saw that you collaborated with Kiid Katze and that's another local internet legend. What was that like? What was he like?
Goblin: Yeah, shout out Kiid Katze. I love him, he’s a great guy. He had some TikTok clout before he started Kiid Katze and I was doing art at the same time, so we were kind of friends. But then we both started doing our Internet shit more prevalently- him way more so. He's got a great mind for memes. He's a young guy, so he's got a really good feel for Internet culture.
It felt like a good collab, because he’s somebody that urban explores and the Goblin is like- I'm trying to make it feel like an urban creepypasta. He's very into the Backrooms. So I was like, okay, the Lisp Goblin could maybe be like a character in the Backrooms, or at least in the same world. And he's the type of person that goes out in sewers and finds random shit, so him finding the Goblin makes a lot of sense contextually to Columbus. How was it working with him? Awesome. Stay tuned for more very soon.
Ian: Have you ever met Hood Panda? I love that guy.
Goblin: Yeah, I know him. He’s a good friend.
Ian: Have you seen that video of him naked on 670?
Goblin: Yes, I have. When I hit the “Hell is Real” sign he texted me and he was like, “That was like me doing the naked thing. People are never going to stop talking about it and you're going to hate it. You’re never going to hear the end of it, people are going to hate you forever”. And I was like, “You're right”.
Other Projects
So how did you get into the fashion kind of side of all this?
Goblin: I think that a lot of street artists and graffiti artists kind of already have a streetwear blend. Like, it's a very easy medium to then put on things. I started airbrushing for practice with spray paint and I was like, “That's a pretty good way to put art on clothes”. Shout out to a lot of other artists that I saw doing that. There's a whole movement of one-of-one clothes where you do, like, a fine art painting on a garment, and now it's the only thing like it that exists. So there's a lot of demand for that.
The specific fashion I do is a combination of Midwest workwear and, like, classic Americana. Levi’s, classic workwear like Carharrt; stuff that will last for a long time. I like to use garments that are very old, like vintage Carharrt from the 60s or 70s. And then I airbrush it with something completely new that only a kid from our generation would wear. So, I kind of combined workwear, graffiti, and cartoon, like, Lisp Goblin culture.
How did the Goblin Rave go?
Goblin: We sold out- twice, basically! We sold out 100 tickets and we weren't sure how many people were going to be able to fit in there, but we ended up just selling tickets until it closed, until like 2:00 AM- which is crazy that people were [still] buying tickets right before it closed, I did not expect that. People really enjoyed it, there'll be more hopefully at the end of the summer, August or so. I think that people like the underground rave scene and having DJs that are our age.
I'm hoping to do more as I grow, as Lisp Goblin grows. I can kind of use it as a promoter kind of thing where Lisp Goblin as a brand is street art, graffiti fashion, fine art, but then it's also live performance art that can include DJ sets and things like that.
Goblin Talk
Have you ever seen a goblin?
Goblin: I have! (laughing) In the mirror. No, I believe in ghosts. I believe in goblins. I believe in vampires. I've seen ‘em all.
How about gnomes?
Goblin: Gnomes for sure. Are you kidding me? We gotta watch out for the gnomes. People are like, “Oh, those goblins”. I'm like, “Nah dude, nuh uh. Guys with the pointy hats- gnomes. Watch out. With the beards?”.
You know what you’re getting into with a goblin. Gnomes, you have no idea.
Goblin: Yeah, what are they doing? Like, planting flowers? Are they building things? I don’t know.
The Future
What's your end goal with Lisp Goblin?
Goblin: I'd say the end goal is to be able to work with whoever I want to. I see Lisp Goblin being kind of like a high octane, lowbrow, NASCAR like- if you know anything about Rat Fink or Hot Wheels, it would be really cool to have something like that. Like, when you see people skydiving, you see them in a Monster t-shirt or Monster goggles. It'd be cool to be a fine artist that fills the need of, like, action sports clothing. I've never seen that before, and it would make a lot of sense for Lisp Goblin, because he's, like, this goblin that does backflips and parkour. So, dirt bikers, motorcyclists, trickers.
Have you ever worked on motorcycle helmets?
Goblin: No, I haven't yet. People are wanting me to, though! I'd like it to go that direction to extreme sports, but I'd also like to just see where it goes naturally. Have it be a kids toy thing, like kids aged 6 to… honestly, adults that would like to have collectible toys that are funky fun. I don't know, I'm really open to it. I have like 1000 more ideas.
Do you have any closing thoughts or things you want to promote?
Goblin: I'm building lots of chrome monsters. They'll be hitting the streets eventually. That's all.
And that’s all we have for you today! As always, big thanks to Lisp Goblin for taking the time to talk with us, and big thanks to any of you reading for supporting us!
If you want to read more epic stories like this one, keep supporting us! Show all your friends and family. If you have any suggestions for who you’d like to see us interview next, feel free to email us at thebobcatpress@gmail.com or DM us on Instagram @thebobcatpress.
Until next time, Bobcat Press out.
Fun interview!