You Missed out on the Earthworm Jim Comic, but you can sign up for the Mailing List to find out about my next campaign here: http://earthwormjimcomic.com/!
My name is Doug TenNapel and I created Earthworm Jim 26 years ago. Though "EWJ" appeared in award winning video games, an animated series and a toy line, his epic story has yet to be told! We all know the character, but none of us know the story. This deficit in the universe ends NOW!
(P.S. Do sign up for the Earthworm Jim Comic mailing list! http://earthwormjimcomic.com/ )
For the first time in 27 years I am crafting an epic graphic novel worthy of the true fans of Earthworm Jim in a multi-book set! Let's launch the cow!
My last Indiegogo campaign was for a comic book called Bigfoot Bill and my backers blew me away by providing $196k in funding! Together, we were able to make a hard bound, giant book with over-the-top gold-leafing and embossing on the cover. With your help, we can make Earthworm Jim: LAUNCH THE COW a beautiful volume that is a work of art unto itself. It goes on the coffee table, not some box of wrinkled, floppy comics in the basement. This story will be a sprawling love letter to the fans of Earthworm Jim!
LATEST STRETCH GOAL:
COMPLETED STRETCH GOALS:
$245k FACT! Add 16 pages to the Making Of EWJ book, form 64 to 80 pages!
$252k FACT! 1 out of every 20 Bigfoot Bill books will get a HEADSKETCH (limited number)!
$285k FACT! Add 16 more pages to the Making of EWJ book, from 80 to 96 pages!
$313k FACT! EVERY BACKER* gets a cloth 3" x 3" GROOVY bomber patch! (*not for BFB)
$320k FACT! Put gold foil on the cover of the EWJ Comic Book!
$325k FACT! Earthworm Jim GROOVY CARDS one FREE pack per Backer! (*not for BFB)
$335k FACT! Add Spot Gloss UV to Comic Cover!
$343k FACT! All books $150 and up get 2 card packs, $500 +10, $1k +30!
$350k FACT! Every Backer* gets an EWJ Blokhedz printed paper craft! (* for BFB)
$360k FACT! EMBOSS THIS BOOK! EWJ Launch the Cow comic gets embossing!
$370k FACT! Every book AND card pack Backer gets + 1 EWJ Groovy Cards PACK!
$420k FACT! Every book Backer gets a free 24 page Bigfoot Bill 2: Finger of Poseidon Comic!
$440k FACT! Giant fold-out 2' x 3' poster by Sebastian Kowoll for every comic book backer!
$450k FACT! Add RED FOIL strike to EWJ Comic Book cover (second color)!
$460k FACT! Add BLUE FOIL on the Making Of EWJ cover!
$470k FACT! Add GOLD FOIL bling on the Making Of EWJ cover!
$480k FACT! Emboss the Making Of EWJ cover!
$490k FACT! Deboss decorations on the EWJ Comic Book cover!
$495k FACT! Deboss the Making Of EWJ cover!
$505k FACT! Put GOLD GILDED EDGES on the EWJ Comic Book!
$515k FACT! EWJ Book gets THREE-PAGE spread!
$525k FACT! Add a Glow-In-The-Dark Page in the Comic Book!
$535k FACT! Gold Foil on Interior End-Sheets of Comic!
$545k FACT! UV Spot Gloss on Comic Book end-sheets!
$555k FACT! Silver Gilding on the edge of Making Of EWJ book!
$565k FACT! Die-Cut the comic book end-sheets (put a window on a page!).
$575k FACT! Add UV spot gloss on the Making Of EWJ end-sheets!
$585k FACT! Add Blue Foil strike to Making Of EWJ end-sheets!
$595k FACT! Add 3 panel fold-out pages to Making of EWJ!
$596,542 FACT! Dye hair KAIJU-Betsy Ross for IGG comic campaign highest raise record!
$600k FACT! Mr. Phillips gets a $1k bonus!
$610k FACT! Ms. Lynn gets a $1k bonus!
$620k FACT! Mr. Weathers gets a $1k bonus!
$630k FACT! Ms. Kavalcova gets a $1k bonus!
$640k FACT! Colorist Ms. Garner gets a $10k bonus!
$650k FACT! Mr. Potter gets a $2k bonus!
$660k FACT! Mr. Fenton and Mr. Roy get a $1k bonus!
$670k FACT! Print Guy Mr. Smith gets a $1k bonus!
$680k FACT! Shipping/Fulfillment Mr. Rathbun gets a $1k bonus!
$690k FACT! Trading Card Designer 1/4Black Garrett gets a $1k bonus!
$760k FACT!Every Book Backer Gets a Princess What's Her Name trading card in Shiny Foil!
$770k FACT! Every Book Backer Gets an animated EWJ trading card by Mike Dietz!
$780k FACT! Every Book Backer Gets an EWJ temp tattoo by Yoshi Vu!
$785k FACT! Every Beale A.F.B. Backer gets and Original Panel of art!
$800k FACT! Make poster reversible!
Finished two-page spread:
The Making Of EARTHWORM JIM Book!
Your Earthworm Jim: Launch the Cow comic is lonely and needs a companion...
The "Making Of The Earthworm Jim Book" is a perfect companion to the comic book. It will also be a 96 page, hardbound, 9" x 12" BEAST! It has a comprehensive backstory on all of the main characters and villains. I think it's tacky to have too much expository dialogue on everyone's past, so it's better to unfurl that in this book. I give you the why behind the entire Earthworm Jim universe... and yes, I'm building a universe!
I recently had a reunion with the whole Earthworm Jim game team and I gotta interview everyone. We talked about how Earthworm Jim came to be and I will document that many close calls and freak accidents that had to fall into place for it to happen. There will be team bios, and a catch up on what everyone has been doing over the last 25 years since we got together.
The Shiny Team section of the book has portraits of the talented artists, programmers and musician and the photos were even taken by David Perry the Earthworm Jim programmer!
I'll show every step of the comic book's production, from raw ideas on the white board to printing every notecard I used in breaking down the story. You'll see the raw pencilled pages, inked pages with washes applied and I even scan my script pages that are covered in pencil re-writes!
Who remembers this cartridge and packaging art by Mike Koelsch...?
I've asked Mike Koelsch to paint a new "90s-style EWJ cover" for the Making Of book! Koelsch will give a step-by-step story on how he illustrated EWJ including a sneak peek into his studio madness. (Check out Koelsch's website here: http://www.sporkunltd.com/) He has also allowed me to make prints of the cover and the original is available on our highest backer tier. I'll put it in a beautiful frame with matting so it's ready to hang in your home!
Here's Mike giving step by step progress on the cover:
I've got perks where you can own the original comic pages, the book covers and enjoy frame-worthy prints plus a perk where I will draw you an original signed Earthworm Jim head-sketch in your book!
The Earthworm Jim GROOVY Trading Cards are here! Every Backer gets 1 pack of 3 cards and 1 sticker with a chance to win a free original page!
3 ART PRINTS!
I hope to make three collectable prints with each Earthworm Jim book by guest artists, and these are the first three. Note: They will only be offered on this campaign and won't be offered on any future campaigns. The first is by Mike Koelsch, the artist who did all of the cartridge and packaging illustrations for Earthworm Jim 1 and 2. The next two are from the CreatureBox boys Greg and Dave!
Click here to learn more about CreatureBox: http://creaturebox.com/
New Tier: The Super-Deluxe Jim-less Original!
As I was making this book, I thought it would be great for fans to be able to still get a piece of original art from the book, but at a lower price. These are beautiful, fully rendered with ink-and-wash, signed, 11" x 17" pages, but they don't have Earthworm Jim on them. They will still have characters like Psycrow, Princess What's Her Name, Professor Monkey for a Head and more! It comes with everything in the Earthworm Jim Signed with Headsketch tier, so we've got your books covered!
Sample Page:
YOU are my Plan A. There is no other plan!
Making a big, beautiful book requires a lot of funding. Paper costs go up every year, and I only use top quality end sheets, cover stock and print work. It's made in America in my state so I can oversee every step of production.
The book will start as a handsome hardbound edition, oversized at 9" x 12" and 160 pages long! It documents the origins of the super suit and how it got to earth to make our favorite hero. You'll see some familiar characters ripped straight out of the video game like: Peter Puppy, Princess What's-Her-Name, Psycrow, the hideous Professor Monkey for a Head, Queen Slug-for-a-Butt and Evil the Cat!
FUND THE TEAM:
The funds will go to a costly print run, my letterer Eric Weathers, flatter Radka Kavalcova, my colorist Katherine Garner, book designer Joe Potter and shipping fees. Here's a sampling of the team's test pages so far:
The Art of Bookmaking
I've spent years making graphic novels and Earthworm Jim is probably my most well-known creation, yet his story hasn't been told. This is my chance to do the best job I can to entertain you and your backing will make this book a fantastic work of art.
I don't see comics as disposable rags made to read once then toss aside. I spend a lot of time writing and story and crafting every page and merely reading some thin floppy or a PDF isn't the experience I'm going for. This book will be something you can enjoy for a lifetime, it's literature, not pop-garbage and I want to stand on the tip-toes of my ability to reach for the highest possible craft I can accomplish!
My track record in this arena has few peers. I Kickstarted two sketchbook archives where we managed leather covers, gold gilded edges and the best printing money can buy. These are one-of-a-kind collector's items that are not available in stores. The book honors the backers who made them happen. I write for the most diverse audience imaginable, and the backers constantly tell me, "I got more than I paid for!"
If you look at my books that are made outside of Indiegogo, you'll see that they don't have the over-the-top printing production I can pull off through crowd funding. Only through Indiegogo will you find foil-stamped gold cover art, UV gloss coatings, embossing and de-bossing! I hope to explore new printing techniques that make these hard bound books the kind of items you show off to your friends with a durability that ensures a great re-read for the rest of your life!
Now that the $252k stretch goal has been met, 1 out of 20 of these BFB books will get a free Bigfoot Bill HEADSKETCH! For more on the Bigfoot Bill campaign click: here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/doug-tennapel-s-bigfoot-bill-graphic-novel/x/838702#/
I spend a lot of time putting these books together, it's time away from my family and I've dedicated my art philosophy and have the highest commitment to being transparent to my backers, include them in every step of the process and take the moral contract between backer & creator seriously.
Why Beale Air Force Base?
When Crew Chief Matt Konar was allowed to choose any artist to paint the nose art on his KC135 refueling plane he wanted something like his favorite character Earthworm Jim! A friend put us in contact, and I designed the artwork for the plane and attended the commissioning ceremony on May 5th. The whole base came out and I felt so humbled to get to help America's finest that I wanted to do something special for those folks and give YOU that same feeling.
By backing the Beale Air Force tier, I hope to send one copy of the Earthworm Jim comic to all 800 people on that base just in time for Christmas! As a thank you, I will send you a signed book!
Here's a sample page from the comic:
Get the Word Out:
The more you share this campaign, the more backers come in and the more we buff out the book for everyone! Please share the link, let your friends know and use the Indiegogo share tools to push this out to all of your social media outlets.
Thank you! I have the best Backers in the world.
Risks & Challenges
I've had some tight deadlines in my career, and this book will be no different. I will have to pencil and ink one to two pages a day, scan them, get them off to my lettering and coloring crew where they will have to match my schedule to keep up. We're up against Christmas, a nightmare for shipping, so there could be some real delays if I can't get most of these books out to you in November. I'm in close contact with my printer and they are fast and good! Here we are at work on my last campaign:
Making of Images:
Doug T production drawing of Professor Monkey-For-A-Head from the first EWJ game (1994):
Princess What's-Her-Name and the Queen concept art:
Legal:
Earthworm Jim is a registered trademark of Interplay Entertainment Corp in the US and/or other countries. c2019 Interplay
Earthworm Jim was created by Doug TenNapel.