Doug TenNapel
From Free net encyclopedia
Douglas TenNapel is an American musician, animator, Eisner Award-winning artist and film maker.
TenNapel started out as an animator on Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, and soon began working in the video game industry on projects like 1993's Jurassic Park for the Sega Genesis, Stimpy's Invention also for the Sega Genesis and Jungle Book for the SNES and Sega Genesis.
In 1994, TenNapel created Earthworm Jim a character that became a video game, toy line and cartoon series.
In 1996 TenNapel created what is perhaps his most famous creation to date for Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks, The Neverhood for the PC. TenNapel also made a sequel for the Neverhood entitled Skullmonkeys in 1998.
In the late 1990s, TenNapel began filming his first feature length live action film, entitled Mothman. Although there have been a handful of screenings at Comedian Conventions, as of 2002, that film was never finished. The movie seemed cursed by some. Gene Andrusco, who was the film's music editor, and performed some of the music, as a member of the Lost Dogs, died somewhat mysteriously. Andrusco, 38, was found dead in his production studio in Huntington Beach, California, during the early morning of March 30, 2000, of a brain aneurysm or heart attack. The sudden passing of Andrusco is today chronicled on The Mothman Death List. TenNapel's Mothman movie remains perhaps unfinished, and certainly, unreleased.
TenNapel was also the creator of the Project G.e.e.K.e.R. cartoon series for CBS, and was a consulting producer on the ABC series Push, Nevada with Ben Affleck.
In 1998 TenNapel released the comic book 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.
In 2002, TenNapel released his second graphic novel, Creature Tech, through Top Shelf. TenNapel's graphic novel was soon the focus of a bidding war between movie studios. 20th Century Fox and Regency Enterprises won the war and are developing the script for a live action motion picture based on the novel.
TenNapel did the cover art for several of Five Iron Frenzy's albums, including a scuplture 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 Imaginarium: Songs from the Neverhood and others.
TenNapel is also the lead singer of an independent band called Truck.
TenNapel is an active blogger and his candid posts are often controversial among his fans.
Contents |
Discography
- A Tribute to Daniel Amos: When Worlds Collide, 1999 Daniel Amos tribute album
Filmography
- Earthworm Jim, cartoon
- Project G.e.e.K.e.R., cartoon
- Mothman
- Koghead and Meatus, animated short
- Push, Nevada, consulting producer
- Sockbaby, Director and Actor
- Catscratch, cartoon
Bibliography
- "The Strange Kid's Chronicles" (a series of five children's books, published by Scholastic)
Graphic novels
- Gear (1999)
- "GEAR begins with four incompetent cats who are assigned to high-jack a Giant Killer Robot. The plans are made, the cats lay in wait, the Robot comes and everything goes wrong. On the other side of town, two detectives find a body and a mystery unfolds. The cat's home town giant robot guardian is attacked by a gargantuan mechanical insect. The whole town is thrown into a panic as they wait for the heroic return of the bumbling cats sent to bring back a Giant Killer Robot protecter. The backstory of a gear-shaped artifact called the Forbidden Mechanism is explored. The cat town is attacked by hordes of insect arimies while the Elder contemplates the fate of their world."
- Creature Tech (2002), ISBN 1891830341
- "Good battles evil, and the world hangs in the balance! Resurrected by the Shroud of Turin, the zombified Dr. Jameson intends to finish what he started 150 years ago - destroying the earth with a giant space eel. Standing in his way is Dr. Ong, a would-be pastor-turned-scientist who now works in a government research facility infamously known as 'Creature Tech.' Aided by an unlikely cast of rednecks, symbiotic aliens, and a CIA-trained mantid, Dr. Ong embarks on a journey of faith, love, and self-discovery. All in a day's work at Creature Tech!"
- 208 pages, b&w Graphic Novel
- Top Shelf's fastest selling first printing; 5,000 copies sold out in 90 days.
- 20th Century Fox and Regency Enterprises picked up the feature film rights.
- Tommysaurus Rex (2004), ISBN 1582403953
- Earthboy Jacobus (2005), ISBN 1582404925
- Iron West (forthcoming 2006)