On this episode of the Good Morning Mug Club, we have an interview with Doug TenNapel, a comic book artist who created some of the greatest video games from your childhood and mine, and Stephen did an entire interview with him. During this interview, Doug plugged his Kickstarter for Earthworm Jim 2, the graphic novel, which has now run out of funding, but he has opened an Indiegogo campaign so that you can still back the campaign and get your copy.
00:00:00.000Today on Good Morning Mug Club, we have an interview with Doug TenNapel.
00:00:02.000He's a comic book artist, he created some of the greatest video games from your childhood and mine, and yeah, Stephen did an entire interview with him.
00:00:11.000During this interview, Doug plugged his Kickstarter for Earthworm Jim 2, the graphic novel.
00:00:19.000So, the problem is, that Kickstarter has ended.
00:00:26.000Today, for you, Doug has opened an Indiegogo campaign so that you can still back the book and get your copy.
00:00:34.000So, if you enjoy the interview, if you're familiar with Doug's work, or if you'd just like to support one of the best artists and storytellers going right now, go to Indiegogo, search for Earthworm Jim 2, and back the book.
00:00:46.000I hope you enjoy this interview, and I'll get off the screen.
00:01:26.000You thought you were cool with Mortal Kombat, avoiding your parents so they didn't see the fatalities, but the truth is the gameplay was... It was for homos!
00:01:34.000Now, talking about that, speaking of Earthworm Jim, our next guest, he created Earthworm Jim.
00:01:41.000He's created all sorts of video games, comic books, cartoons.
00:01:44.000He's voiced them as well, which I want to ask him about.
00:01:46.000He is right now running a Kickstarter campaign for Earthworm Jim 2.
00:01:51.000Fight the Fish is a sequel to the comic book.
00:02:29.000What, are you just going to keep him a day raider, or do you want him full time?
00:02:32.000Because he's going to be on the open market soon.
00:02:37.000He is amazing, I will say, about Quarter Black Garrett.
00:02:39.000He came in, we did the Golden Ticket Sweepstakes, and I've talked about this, where he came in and he wasn't quite there for editing because he didn't have the experience, you know, at that point, but we just loved his attitude, and so we brought him back for whatever we could do, and then he would build these full freaking costumes and animatronic things, and we go, Garrett, you can do this?
00:03:51.000All right, well, Doug, sorry we got off on not the wrong foot, but who is it?
00:03:55.000So explain to people who don't know you.
00:03:58.000Kind of what your background is, obviously everyone sort of knows Earthworm Jim, but your involvement, and then we can get to, you know, why so many people want to hurt you.
00:04:08.000So Earthworm Jim is my biggest hit, obviously, from the early to mid-90s, but I also did The Neverhood and Skull Monkeys is another video game I did for DreamWorks.
00:04:17.000I've worked for every major studio doing games, and then I started doing comic books.
00:04:22.000I did the book Gear, Creature Tech, These are all books I ended up selling into Hollywood for millions of dollars.
00:04:30.000I started selling the IPs in, and they didn't know I was a Christian.
00:04:34.000I've always been vocal, but just there wasn't an internet to get the word out.
00:04:40.000And then that also opened up doors into television.
00:04:42.000So I was an exec producer on the Earthworm Jim animated series, and then I did a show version of Gear, the comic book, for Nickelodeon called Cat Scratch.
00:04:52.000This is before it went full blue hair LGBT over there.
00:04:57.000Oh, I thought it was maybe a little bit of a send-up to, you know, a little wink and a nod to Ted Nugent, who also would be one of your allies.
00:05:02.000Yeah, Ted Nugent, Cat's Got Your Fever.
00:05:05.000And then, so I've just always done video games, TV, and so when people say that, like, conservative Christians aren't that creative, that raises my hackles a little bit because I've always operated on the front lines of the world.
00:05:42.000So I got the rights back just for the book and started doing crowdfunding to kind of
00:05:49.000protect my career and do it independently.
00:05:52.000Well, I think what's interesting is, you just mentioned this, you came at it honestly in that you made it in an industry.
00:05:58.000At that point, people didn't really know that you were a Christian, as opposed to,
00:06:01.000I don't wanna say grifting, but there are a lot of people who effectively,
00:06:04.000like as a stand-up comedian, I performed at a church once,
00:06:08.000and it was because my friend was a youth pastor.
00:06:10.000It was like some kind of a graduation.
00:06:11.000And then he told me, we had, and I won't name names, so-and-so in here,
00:06:14.000and these were people I'd never heard of.
00:06:15.000He said, they clean up making millions of dollars doing the church circuit,
00:06:18.000but they've never been comedians before.
00:06:20.000They go, no, they just were pastoring a church, and they started being comedians.
00:06:22.000There's a big difference between making it work because you sort of use, I don't wanna say a gimmick,
00:06:26.000but you know that you're performing just for that niche and happening to be a Christian,
00:06:30.000where your values define you, but making it in the deepest talent pool,
00:06:34.000which not only did you do, but Earthworm Jim, and not that that's the only thing you've done,
00:06:38.000but for me growing up, that is a marker in my childhood.
00:06:41.000That was one of the most iconic games.
00:06:44.000You had Mario, and you had Sonic, and then Earthworm Jim came in, and surprisingly as a Christian guy, it was considered edgier for me as a kid, Earthworm Jim.
00:06:54.000Yeah, the first thing I saw of yours was your imitation you did of Tom Cruise.
00:07:01.000So before I knew you were a Christian, I knew you were funny and you were talented.
00:07:05.000And to me, that's a high compliment when someone likes your work because of your clip.
00:07:41.000Yeah, it was, it was considered edgier though too.
00:07:43.000Earthworm Jim, I remember as a kid, like there were some things, it wasn't Mortal Kombat, but I remember as a kid, you know, with Christian parents being like, Oh, I don't know if I want them to see this level.
00:08:07.000And we just wanted, you know, video games were not very creative at the time.
00:08:11.000And so we wanted to bring in something a little more Like non sequitur, freaky, funny.
00:08:20.000And the tech side of, this is the tech side of Earthworm Jim that really doesn't get enough credit.
00:08:26.000It was so hard to cram that much art into a cartridge because you're talking about an amount of memory of like a postage stamp, you know, like a floppy disk.
00:08:34.000So the tech guys were able to compress the art so well that it gave us way more frames of animation that allowed us to put in more gags and more humor.
00:08:50.000Their phone has more technology than we had in all of our systems and computers, for crying out loud.
00:08:56.000First time I found out what an emulator was, when computers had gotten good enough, I said, I can have all my Super Nintendo games in a folder?
00:09:07.000So you've worked in the industry for obviously a very long time, and I want to get to kind of our connection with Andrew Breitbart and Big Hollywood.
00:09:13.000But first, so what is it that has pissed people off about you?
00:09:17.000I know you've had the LGBTQAAIP silent F after you recently, a quick search.
00:09:47.000Really, the basics of my disagreement with them is over the marriage issue.
00:09:53.000And that I don't endorse, so I won't endorse.
00:09:56.000Obviously in animation and even on my graphic novels I've had gay crew members and trans crew members and there was never a problem with them.
00:10:05.000It's with specific cancel culture groups that are online organized behind the scenes.
00:10:11.000There's probably 30 of them in some Discord or forum somewhere where they all launch their attacks against all of my vendors and try to get me cancelled.
00:10:20.000So on Kickstarter they'll send a You know, 30 emails a day to Kickstarter to try and get them to remove my campaign.
00:10:28.000Anytime one of my Scholastic books would come out.
00:10:31.000You know, Scholastic, this is hostile territory.
00:10:38.000I just thought that was innocent because I was a kid looking through what effectively it looked like a coupon or flyer.
00:10:42.000And I was like, oh, look, a new Bernstein Bears.
00:10:47.000I'll get that in a mere nine and a half weeks.
00:10:51.000And they're all full Black Lives Matter now, you know, they all give their donations to Black Lives Matter, Kickstarter, all of my vendors, Image Comics, Indiegogo, you know, we're all on YouTube also.
00:11:04.000And so, to me, it's really just anti- Specifically conservative Christians, because they'll give a Christian a pass if you're okay with gay marriage.
00:11:13.000And if you're okay with, you know, abortion or whatever, then you're the good kind of Christian.
00:11:19.000Basically they're okay with Christians like Rob Bell, you know, who are going to hell.
00:12:17.000And in major businesses that are doing the rainbow logo and the Black Lives Matter logo on, you know, taking over their corporations.
00:12:27.000And now you're just seeing the mainstreaming of it.
00:12:29.000And I don't know exactly what's going to happen in the future, but I put my career in, I'm here to do my best, and then I just put the rest of my career in God's hands.
00:12:38.000I'm here to fight, and as soon as He wants me canceled, I'll get canceled.
00:12:42.000But until then, I'm going to be as vocal as I can be.
00:12:45.000And it's sad that, you know, I've been really disappointed.
00:12:47.000I'm disappointed in the church with Black Lives Matter, with COVID.
00:12:50.000When gyms and other businesses are opening up and churches refuse to congregate, I go, all right, you don't deserve my tithe anymore.
00:12:57.000I'm going to find a church with balls.
00:12:59.000And especially when you consider, if I'm not mistaken, wasn't it your latest Kickstarter, though?
00:13:04.000Didn't it go from like zero to entirely funded in 13 minutes?
00:13:07.000So there's a market out there, but Christians are afraid to speak up.
00:13:10.000And I'm more disappointed with them than I am with people who don't know better.
00:13:15.000I agree, and this goes back to the Mug Club, too, is we need to hear the support of our people, need to come out and back us so that—vocally, even, because it's—and you need to write in and say, I'm backing because of this, and good job, guys.
00:14:02.000I don't know if the church will always be fine, because I tell you what, I think the worry was for a long time for the church, they would say, well, we don't want to speak out politically and lose our 501c3 status.
00:14:09.000And in California, you know, AudioAid has made this great point that really that speaking out is just meeting, right?
00:14:20.000That's the new punk rock, you know, rage against the machine.
00:14:23.000Actually, Morello is endorsing the machine that prevents pastors and church ladies from meetings, so I don't know at what point he stopped raging.
00:14:29.000The most punk rock guy is now John MacArthur, who rebelled, you know, and said, we're going to church.
00:14:34.000And Doug Wilson up in Moscow, Idaho, they're going like, we're not wearing masks.
00:15:10.000I have no problem with LGBT people being in the church.
00:15:13.000I have no problem with people who disagree.
00:15:14.000But the problem now is this isn't just someone who has a certain attraction or someone who feels that they're a different gender than their biological.
00:15:22.000The difference is now this group is a political wing that is trying to actively remove anyone who doesn't accept They're sometimes anti-scientific narratives wholesale.
00:15:33.000It's like, hey, you're welcome in the church.
00:15:35.000Just like people are welcome in the church if they're shacking up and living together.
00:15:38.000But we're not going to say that that's God's plan.
00:15:41.000Hey, you can prefer a different kind of friction.
00:15:44.000We don't care how hairy what you rub up against really is.
00:15:48.000But it doesn't mean that the Bible, the Word, changes.
00:15:50.000But you're welcome here, and hopefully we'll try and work on this together.
00:15:53.000But the difference is now those people are saying you shouldn't exist.
00:15:56.000In the industry, as you work in the entertainment industry, and now they also want to, of course, we see this, destroy the churches themselves by removing their tax- You can't feed your family unless you agree, and I'll make that other statement on LGBT2.
00:16:08.000Any gay person that I know, I'm a way worse sinner than you, saved by grace.
00:17:10.000And, you know, people also need to understand that Marxism, that people actually read Karl Marx, it's a distinctly anti-God theology.
00:17:17.000It's a distinctly atheistic, hopeless philosophy.
00:17:21.000And a big part of it is replacing the idea that the cultural, the central figurehead of God, and replacing the God-shaped hole that people have in their lives with government and this idea of forced community.
00:17:32.000You may not be that version of a socialist, communist, or Marx, but that is its origin.
00:17:38.000I think a lot of these people don't know it, and that's why they say it's black versus white, rather than actually virtue, freedom, versus enforced atheism and nihilism, long term.
00:17:49.000That's something that we learned from Breitbart back in the day, sitting at his knee, is he saw all of this coming because he knew, he read so much of Marx.
00:18:30.000Now, what's very interesting is they're obsessed with money, for this idea of the bourgeoisie, this idea of this upper class who have all the money, and it shouldn't be that important.
00:18:56.000And they could cancel you and I today and take all of our money.
00:19:00.000They can't take your wife, they can't take your kids, they can't take your freedom.
00:19:07.000They can't take so many immaterial things, but all they know is just, I'm going to get Crowder by take, I'm going to de-platform him on YouTube, and then he'll be as miserable as me.
00:19:18.000Well now they are trying to take your kids.
00:19:21.000They want, that's why they're going after the public school system, and they want to disallow, you see this group at Harvard, right, because of COVID, a lot of people realizing, hey, my kid's learning more effectively with homeschooling, and I actually like spending time with my kids rather than dropping off at daycare.
00:19:34.000So you had these committees come forward and people from the Ivy League saying, no, no, no, no, we need to make sure that now we have control over homeschooling, where they learned that biological sex is a figment of their imagination, you know, so on and so forth.
00:19:46.000I believe that's in the curriculum somewhere near the back.
00:20:24.000And everything else was, I remember looking back, was a book called Tears of a Tiger, my junior year, and it was a total social justice thing.
00:20:32.000And I didn't even know, I was reading it like, ah, really, man, the cops are really beating on this black guy.
00:20:38.000You know, at this point, I might have been in the 10th grade, I do not like it when police officers beat up black men because they are racist.
00:20:53.000We were just concerned that we had Quarterback Garrett wear his contacts because we didn't want people to start a fire and take his glasses.
00:21:01.000That broke my heart as a kid, what they did with Piggy, and then I remember I watched... Yeah, it's messed up.
00:21:17.000I'm like one old hoity-toity graphic novel.
00:21:19.000You get something like a thing about that.
00:21:22.000But, you know, you inject humor into it quite a bit.
00:21:24.000I remember reading Lord of the Flies and it really bothered me once they killed, spoiler alert, Piggy.
00:21:32.000And then when we had to read it out loud in class, I got that portion, I read it, and I started laughing uncontrollably.
00:21:41.000And I hate to use this sort of self-psycho analysis, but it was definitely because I was uncomfortable with something that it really bothered me as a kid.