BOOK NEWS – ‘Doug TenNapel Sketchbook Archives’ Kickstarter Announced

By Marty Mulrooney

Doug TenNapel Sketchbook Archives

In 2010, Alternative Magazine Online interviewed legendary video game designer (Earthworm Jim, The Neverhood) and graphic novelist (Creature Tech, Ghostopolis) Doug TenNapel. Power Up was also chosen as one of AMO’s best books/graphic novels of 2009, with TenNapel described as: ‘One of the great graphic novelists of our time.’ Therefore, when the ‘Doug TenNapel Sketchbook Archives’ Kickstarter project recently came to our attention, we were understandably quite excited.

The ‘Doug TenNapel Sketchbook Achieves’ project is being funded by a Kickstarter campaign that will run until Sunday 21st October 2012 at 1:28pm EDT, with a $18,000 goal. With five days left to go, the total raised currently stands at over $75,000 – the project was actually fully funded after just four days. Which is no surprise, as the concept sounds fantastic:

“I’ve taken the best drawings from my 42 sketchbooks and put them together into one 250 page, hard bound volume called the Sketchbook Archives. This isn’t just a collection of drawings, but it is a useful tool on how to create characters, worlds and story lines for anything from video games to graphic novels and television shows.”

Earthworm Jim

So, with the original goal well and truly smashed… why does the Kickstarter project need to raise more money? Mr TenNapel further explained in a recent update:

“Thank you to the new backers! We need to get more backers so I can have a higher print run that makes all of the books a little more affordable. I switched the 55k goal to be imitation leather as that’s the library-style book I wanted this book to look like in the first place. There are stretch goals that add to this classic look like the head and tail bands, a bound-in ribbon bookmark and after that, we’re just pushing for higher page counts!”

The Neverhood

Pledgers can pay extra to have their book signed and doodled in by Mr TenNapel himself – higher pledgers can even bag themselves an original sketchbook page or an original piece of Catscratch animation production art!

For more information – and to pledge your support – please visit: