the comic debuted on june 26, 2005, and updates presently occur at the rate of approximately 2-3 pages per month. the strip originally began in black and white, before converting to color in the thirtieth strip. the comic often employs humor related to metagaming in dungeons & dragons, such as a cleric praying to the all-powerful but nerdy dungeon master or characters arguing about whether or not they were subject to a random encounter. as the strip has progressed, the tone has become bleaker and the humor aspects have become less central than they were in early strips, although still present. in august 2006, goblins joined keenspot. in september 2006 it won dragon con's "most outstanding new webcartoonist" award. a first bound volume of the webcomic is in print in north america and europe, and contains a foreword by dungeons and dragons game designer monte cook. a second volume was released in 2009.