| Birth Name: | Douglas Richard TenNapel |
| Birth Date: | July 10, 1966 |
| Nationality: | American |
| Area: | Animator, writer, video game designer, comic book artist |
| Notable Works: | Earthworm Jim The Neverhood Catscratch Ghostopolis Ratfist Nnewts |
| Awards: | Eisner Award Winner |
| Children: | 4 |
Douglas Richard TenNapel (; born July 10, 1966) is an American animator, writer, cartoonist, video game designer, and comic book artist whose work has encompassed animated television, video games, and comic books. He is best known for creating Earthworm Jim, a character that spawned a video game series, animated series, and a toy line. He is also the creator of the animated television series Catscratch (2005–2007), which aired on Nickelodeon, and was itself a loose adaptation of TenNapel's comic book limited series Gear.
TenNapel began as an animator on Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: The Animated Series. He soon began working in the video game industry on projects like 1993's Jurassic Park and The Ren & Stimpy Show: Stimpy's Invention for the Sega Genesis and The Jungle Book for the SNES and Sega Genesis. In 1994, he created Earthworm Jim, the character that would star in Shiny Entertainment's video game, toy line, and cartoon series. Shiny Entertainment head David Perry later commented on working with TenNapel, "I wish I could find 100 Dougs, then I realized I was lucky to have been able to work with one. He is crazy talented, both crazy and talented! He also generates an enormous amount of amazing content and ideas, I wouldn’t be surprised if he sleeps with a sketch-book!"[1] In 1995, he left Shiny Entertainment and founded his own company, Neverhood, with several other former Shiny employees.[2] Working for DreamWorks Interactive, Neverhood created The Neverhood for the PC and PlayStation. The sequel, entitled Skullmonkeys, followed in 1998.[3]
On television, TenNapel was the creator of the Project G.e.e.K.e.R. cartoon series for CBS. He was also a consulting producer on the ABC series Push, Nevada with Ben Affleck. Towards the end of the 2000s, he also created two shorts for Frederator Studios and Nicktoons, "Solomon Fix" (computer generated 3D) and "Squirly Town" (traditional 2D).[4]
As a graphic artist and cartoonist, TenNapel released his first comic book in 1998: Gear, a surreal epic based on his real-life cats, Simon, Waffle, Gordon and Mr. Black, in a war against dogs and insects using giant robots as weapons. The cats from Gear would eventually become the Nickelodeon series Catscratch.[5]
TenNapel did the cover art for several of Five Iron Frenzy's albums, including a sculpture for their live album, Proof That the Youth Are Revolting. TenNapel has also created album covers and artwork for several Daniel Amos CDs, The 1999 tribute to the band, When Worlds Collide, the Neverhood soundtrack and others.
Flink, a graphic novel by TenNapel, was released in late 2007 through Image Comics. Monster Zoo was released in early summer 2008. In May 2009 his graphic novel Power Up was released.[6]
Between January and October 2009, TenNapel was a regular contributor to Breitbart News' "Big Hollywood" section, covering topics from movie reviews and the state of the comics entertainment industry to criticisms of the Obama administration and the environmental movement.[7] [8]
In July 2010, his graphic novel Ghostopolis was released. In 2009, it was announced the book would be adapted into a film starring and produced by Hugh Jackman, but no update has been given since then.[9]
TenNapel produced an episodic spoof of Japanese Super Sentai-style shows called Go Sukashi! based on a character by Shoko Nakagawa (who appears in the films), and starring John Soares and Brooke Brodack. He has also published an online superhero-genre-spoofing webcomic titled Ratfist.[10]
In September 2012, Fox Animation optioned TenNapel's published Graphix novel Cardboard, with plans for actor Tobey Maguire's Material Pictures, graphic novelist Doug TenNapel, and the Gotham Group to be executive producers. Fox planned to have the picture developed under its WedgeWorks subsidiary. WedgeWorks director Chris Wedge (Ice Age) was producing, and considered directing the film as well.[11] As of 2020, no update has been given on the film, especially given the acquisition of 21st Century Fox assets by The Walt Disney Company.
TenNapel has used Kickstarter to produce a bound collection of his sketches, named Sketchbook Archives.[12]
TenNapel and other former members of the Earthworm Jim team at Pencil Test Studios launched a Kickstarter campaign in May 2013 to fund a PC game project called Armikrog, described a spiritual successor to The Neverhood and also being animated using clay animation techniques.[13] It was successful, and reached its stretch goal for a Wii U version.
In 2018, TenNapel self-published the graphic novel Bigfoot Bill, launched as an Indiegogo, successfully funded and reaching various stretch goals.
In May 2019, TenNapel and other members of the original Earthworm Jim team announced a new Earthworm Jim game, to be released as an exclusive for the upcoming Intellivision Amico.[14] [15] He also self-published the graphic novel Earthworm Jim: Launch the Cow, again on Indiegogo.
TenNapel was born in Norwalk, California and raised in Denair, California. [16] He has been married to Angie since 1990.[17] The couple have four children.[18] TenNapel was personal friends with Andrew Breitbart prior to the latter's death.
TenNapel has attracted criticism for his remarks on the LGBTQ community and its issues, including vocal opposition to same-sex marriage and intentionally misgendering a transgender journalist who criticized the Earthworm Jim video game.[19] [20] [21] [22]
He has dismissed this criticism, and has written that "transphobe (like homophobe) is a made-up word used to slander conservative people of faith with a mental condition, and is only used by SJWs".[23] TenNapel was involved with Comicsgate, a right-wing campaign against perceived forced diversity and progressivism in the superhero comics industry.[23] Sean Gordon Murphy had drawn a cover for one of TenNapel's works, Bigfoot Bill 2, which he withdrew and issued an apology after being made aware of TenNapel's history of anti-LGBTQ comments. In response, TenNapel tweeted that it is "more important than ever that pro-family comic lovers support my work", stating his belief that LGBTQ people are waging a "culture war" against him.[24]
TenNapel supported Donald Trump's presidency and regularly posts his political opinions on various social media platforms.[25]
| Year | Title | Publisher | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | They Called Him Evil | Mockingbird Studios | |
| 1998 | Scud Tales from the vending machine #3 | Fireman Press | |
| 1998/2018 | Gear | Fireman Press/Image Comics | |
| 2002/2019 | Creature Tech | Top Shelf Productions/Image Comics | |
| 2004 | Tommysaurus Rex | Image Comics | |
| 2005 | Earthboy Jacobus | Image Comics | |
| 2006 | Iron West | Image Comics | |
| 2007 | Black Cherry | Image Comics | |
| 2007 | Flink | Image Comics | |
| 2008 | Monster Zoo | Image Comics | |
| 2009 | Power Up | Image Comics[26] | |
| 2010 | Ghostopolis | GRAPHIX (an imprint of Scholastic)[27] | |
| 2011 | Bad Island | GRAPHIX[28] | |
| 2012 | Cardboard | GRAPHIX[29] | |
| 2012 | Return to the Neverhood (illustrations) | Stunt Grafx[30] | |
| 2015 | Nnewts - Escape From the Lizzarks | GRAPHIX | |
| 2016 | Nnewts - The Rise of Herk | GRAPHIX | |
| 2017 | Nnewts - The Battle for Amphibopolis | GRAPHIX | |
| 2019 | Bigfoot Bill: Shadow of the Mothman | Self-published | |
| 2019 | Earthworm Jim: Launch the Cow | Self-published | |
| 2020 | Bigfoot Bill 2: Finger of Poseidon | Self-published | |
| 2021 | Earthworm Jim 2: Fight the Fish | Self-published |
| Year | Title | |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Ratfist | |
| 2012 | Nnewts |
| Year | Title | Publisher | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Doug and Mike's Strange Kid Chronicles #1: Mighty Monday Madness | Scholastic Press | Co-written with Michael Koelsch | |
| 1997 | Doug and Mike's Strange Kid Chronicles #2: Tuna Fish Tuesday | Scholastic Press | Co-written with Michael Koelsch | |
| 1998 | Doug and Mike's Strange Kid Chronicles #3: Wisenheimer Wednesday | Scholastic Press | Co-written with Michael Koelsch | |
| 1998 | Doug and Mike's Strange Kid Chronicles #4: Just Thursday | Scholastic Press | Co-written with Michael Koelsch | |
| 1998 | Doug and Mike's Strange Kid Chronicles #5: Fateful Friday | Scholastic Press | Co-written with Michael Koelsch |
| Year | Title | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Attack of the Killer Tomatoes | Animator | |
| 1995–1996 | Earthworm Jim | Creator, executive producer, and writer | |
| 1996 | Project G.e.e.K.e.R. | Co-Creator and executive producer | |
| 2000 | Koghead and Meatus | Short Director and writer | |
| 2002 | Push, Nevada | Consulting producer | |
| 2004 | Sockbaby | Director, writer and voice of Sockbaby | |
| 2005–2007 | Catscratch | Creator, executive producer, director, writer, and storyboard artist | |
| 2007–2008 | Random! Cartoons | Creator, writer, character designer, storyboard artist, and voice director Episodes: "Squirly Town" and "Solomon Fix" | |
| 2009 | Ape Escape | Writer and storyboard artist | |
| 2012 | Adventure Time | Writer Episode: "Sons of Mars" | |
| 2012 | It's a SpongeBob Christmas! | TV special Stop Motion animator | |
| 2014–2016 | VeggieTales in the House | Writer and executive producer | |
| 2017 | VeggieTales in the City | Writer and executive producer | |
| 2017 | The Legend of Boo-Kini Bottom | TV special Stop Motion animator |
| Year | Title | Note | Developer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Animator | Realtime Associates | ||
| 1993 | Technoclash | Blue Sky Software | ||
| Jurassic Park (Sega Genesis) | ||||
| The Ren & Stimpy Show: Stimpy's Invention | ||||
| 1994 | The Jungle Book | Virgin Games USA/Eurocom | ||
| Earthworm Jim | Creator, writer, designer, voice of Earthworm Jim[31] | Shiny Entertainment | ||
| 1995 | Earthworm Jim 2 | |||
| 1996 | The Neverhood | Creator, writer, designer, voice of Hoborg, Bil, and Klogg | The Neverhood, Inc. | |
| 1998 | Skullmonkeys | Creator, writer, designer, voice of Klogg | ||
| 1999 | BoomBots | Creator, writer, designer | ||
| 2015 | Armikrog | Creator, writer, designer, artist, additional animation | Pencil Test Studios |
| Year | Artist | Album | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Daniel Amos | BibleLand | |
| 1997 | Five Iron Frenzy | Our Newest Album Ever! | |
| 1998 | Five Iron Frenzy | Quantity Is Job 1 | |
| 1999 | Five Iron Frenzy | Proof That the Youth Are Revolting | |
| 2000 | Various Artists | ||
| 2003 | Five Iron Frenzy | The End Is Near | |
| 2004 | Terry S. Taylor | Imaginarium: Songs from the Neverhood | |
| 2013 | Five Iron Frenzy | Engine of a Million Plots |