Comic Book / Earthworm Jim (2019)

Let's launch the cow!!

"The epic comic book story of Earthworm Jim told for the first time by the creator of Earthworm Jim!

— The Earthworm Jim: Launch The Cow Indiegogo page.

If you're looking for the 3-issue miniseries published in 1995, click here.

After 20 long years of dormancy and canceled games, the Earthworm Jim franchise has finally resurfaced with a graphic novel series both written and illustrated by the man himself, Doug TenNapel.

The first in the series, Earthworm Jim: Launch the Cow, was produced in 2019 and serves as a retelling of the first game's story.

Deep in space, the evil Queen Slug-For-A-Butt plans to conquer the universe by using a powerful space suit created by Professor Monkey-For-A-Head. After hiring the nefarious space mercenary Psycrow to destroy a planet in order to test its abilities, Princess What's-Her-Name, the queen's ugly daughter, steals the suit and attempts to escape with it. Ditching the suit when she's shot down by Psycrow, it ends up in the hands of a space fairy drifting alone in space, who grants the suit with additional powers to give life to whoever stumbles upon it and become a hero. The suit falls to earth and lands on an earthworm, transforming it and granting it sentient life, who becomes none other than our hero Earthworm Jim. Curious, naive and filled with questions, Jim remains oblivious to the danger surrounding him as both the Princess and Psycrow track him down to take back the suit.

Following the announcement of a new Earthworm Jim game for the Intellivision Amico, reuniting several members of the team that worked on the original game, Doug announced an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for a new graphic novel that would finally tell the full story of Earthworm Jim that he had wanted to do several years ago. The goal of $12,000 was surpassed within six minutes and ended with over $700,000, breaking the record for the highest-funded comic on the site as of this writing.

The second book in the series, Earthworm Jim 2: Fight the Fish, successfully met its funding goal on Kickstarter and Indiegogo in 2020, and was released in early 2021. After Princess What's-Her-Name is kidnapped by Bob the Killer Goldfish, Jim and his new allies head into space to save her.

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The Earthworm Jim graphic novels contain the following groovy tropes:

General

• Action Girl: Princess What's-Her-Name, and how. Although she bares many similarities to her cartoon counterpart, the "Making Of" book claims that this iteration of her is heavily inspired by Marion Ravenwood and Princess Leia.
• Adaptation Deviation:
  • It was previously established in both the games and animated series that Princess What's-Her-Name was Queen Slug-For-A-Butt's sister. Here, she's actually the queen's daughter, but the second volume reveals that Launa isn't even related the queen at all, but born of a human father and an Earth fairy mother.
  • Peter Puppy is now a realistic-looking dog named Proto Pooch who is a spy for the queen. When Jim first finds him and sees his initials on his dog tag, he gives him the name Peter Puppy, and Proto later embraces the name.
  • Planet Heck is no longer a planet, but another dimension. Or is seemingly located beneath the Earth.
  • Snott's origin in the games had him escape in Jim's backpack when our hero went to Mucus Planet to fight against Major Mucus. Here, he's already allied with Princess What's-Her-Name and serves as her partner.
  • Jim's Pocket Rocket was said to be part of the suit, but here he discovers it on Earth in Farmer Jim's barn. But it fits in his pocket anyway because anything can.
• Audience Surrogate: Farmer Jim, who Earthworm Jim takes his name from, is a common farmer who wants nothing to do with the giant earthworm or whoever's associated with him but still gets trapped in the conflict regardless.
• Broken Bird: Outwardly, the Princess may be a tough as nails warrior, but being raised as the daughter of Slug-For-A-Butt has left her with a lot of issues. She's convinced that she looks ugly and hideous, and no one had ever given her a compliment even once in her life until she met Earthworm Jim. Following the first book, she has a difficult time readjusting to her new life on earth because she's not used to being treated so kindly by everyone else around her.
• Classic Villain: Most of the villains are given these traits. Psycrow is now driven by gluttony and greed, as his payment usually comes in the form of canned worms, and can't resist them. Monkey-For-A-Head is driven by pride as the Queen funds his science projects, and Evil the Cat on the other hand is just, well, evil.
• Continuity Nod: The comic makes some nods not just to the games but also the cartoon series.
  • At some point, Evil the Cat says the phrase "A minor setback", his Catchphrase from the cartoon.
  • Princess What's-Her-Name uses a bug pistol, which was taken from her action figure.
  • Like the cartoon, What's-Her-Name is also considered a freak of nature by the queen's soldiers.
  • The heroes also revert Peter back to his normal form by tickling him in his beast form. He's also referred to as Jim's "fuzz-buddy" as well.
  • The second issue makes a reference to the "Great Worm Spirit" from the cartoon, except in this case it's a wormhole that flooded the "Planeta de Suelo" and turned it into "Planeta de Agua".
  • When Jim gets eaten by a giant hamster, his suit gives him the blind cave salamander suit, which he needs to survive going through its intestines.
  • When Jim saves the day in Fight the Fish, Peter remarks, "He's such a groovy guy!"
• Flawless Token: It's acknowledged in the "Making Of" book that Princess What's-Her-Name was a fun and ditzy parody of the Save the Princess trope, and while it was more acceptable in the 90's, it wouldn't fly well today, and she's been reworked into a fierce and intelligent Action Girl.
• Galactic Conqueror: Slug-For-A-Butt's goal is to become this and conquer the universe using the suit.
• No Mouth: Evil the Cat seems to not have a mouth, as opposed to the cartoon series, or his lower lip appears to be hidden by his two buck teeth. Ultimately averted, however, as it is later shown that Evil does indeed have a mouth when he screams in agony whenever he hears the word, "America".
• Only Sane Woman: Princess What's-Her-Name, especially when compared to Jim, who just wants to hang out and have fun when there's a serious crisis at hand, while she is determined to stop her evil mother. Slightly downplayed as her time on earth makes her unaware of their customs and tries drinking syrup and eating a stick of butter for breakfast.
  Farmer Jim: I'm gonna keep letting you do that because it's really funny.
• Our Fairies Are Different:
  • The Space Fairy is blue, is the height of the average human, has abnormally long hair, has no wings, and is dressed like a goddess. However, as shown in an unused page, she was previously meant to be yellow, have shorter hair, and possibly be of minuscule size.
  • Princess What's-Her-Name's real mother is an Earth Fairy, but aside from her hair, Alaura looks just as human as anyone else.
• Ship Tease: Plenty with Earthworm Jim and Princess What's-Her-Name. He falls for her the instant he meets her, which causes a lot of awkward moments between them. Although she insists there's nothing romantic between them, it's clear that she does grow fond of him over time, at least platonically. Whether it stays that way remains to be seen.
• Shout-Out:
  • The trading cards included with the first book have Jim on his rocket depicted in a style similar to Ed Roth's "Rat Fink".
  • Psycrow uses the suit on the queen's ship to have numerous green lasers blow up a planet.
  • In a panel where Princess What's-Her-Name enters a bar, you can see a sign on the wall that says "1984".
  • When the others distract Jim with a piece of aluminum foil in Fight the Fish:
    Peter Puppy: Look at the foil, Jim! It's entertaining!
    Earthworm Jim: Shiny... Entertainment!
    Princess: That's an odd Interplay of words.
• Women Are Wiser: Princess What's-Her-Name is as smart as she is tough and is more on top of things than our title character is.

Book 1: Launch The Cow

• Abusive Parents: Queen Slug-for-a-Butt is this towards her daughter, Princess What's-Her-Name. Like the rest of Insectica, the queen sees her daughter as ugly. The queen is also very dismissive of her daughter's protests against the idea of blowing up planets, and also claims that her daughter knows nothing of morality compared to a queen. To top it all off, Slug-For-A-Butt was perfectly willing to destroy Earth while her own daughter is still on it!
• Anthropomorphic Transformation: Psycrow uses a device from Monkey-For-A-Head to summon crows and transform them into human-like beasts to retrieve Jim's suit.
• Army of Lawyers: Evil has a legal team of four lawyers that he uses to sic on Jim.
• Awkward Kiss: Jim plants one on What's-Her-Name out of nowhere, and promptly gets slapped for it.
• Bar Brawl: Psycrow is on the receiving end of one after he shoots their beloved mechanical riding bull.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Princess What's-Her-Name actually becomes fond of Jim because he pays her a small compliment when no one has ever said anything nice to her in her whole life. She even grieves for him when he dies.
  • Proto Pooch joins Jim after our hero decides to spare his life, and is the first being to ever call him a good dog.
• Berserk Button:
  • Slug-For-A-Butt hates it when Psycrow calls her "Queenie".
  • Never mention "America" near Evil the Cat.
• Big Good: Princess What's-Her-Name now appears to be this, as she's the one who takes a stand against the queen, tries to inform Jim of the danger that they're facing, and serves as a foil to his naive and childlike innocence.
• Big "NO!": Psycrow when he gets a wedgie. Evil the Cat when he hears the word "America". Queen Slug-For-A-Butt when she loses the super suit.
• Born of Magic: Jim, thanks to the suit being granted this ability by a space fairy.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Jim and the princess get in an argument while the farmer's house is under attack.
  Jim: That's the problem with you! Everything is about this fight, and you never stop to enjoy what you're fighting for!
  Princess: Because if we don't fight, nothing will be left to enjoy!
  Jim: (Beat) That almost makes sense!
• Chekhov's Gun: Jim's butt after he gets torn in half by Psycrow. After Jim sacrifices himself, the suit lands where his butt is buried, bringing him back to life.
• Companion Cube: The guys at the bar are livid when Psycrow blows up a mechanical riding bull. Although Psycrow says it's nothing more than a dumb machine, he's informed that it was the state darts champion for 18 years, won a purple heart in the Gulf War, won a gold medal in the '96 Olympics, won the Nobel Peace prize, and was also on the verge of curing cancer!
• Contrived Coincidence: The sandworms of Heck embrace Jim as The Chosen One, as a prophecy foretold of a giant earthworm that would work in Heck for 626 years.
• Destructive Savior: When Jim fires his plasma gun inside Farmer Jim's house, it destroys a good portion of it.
• Dirty Communists: Evil the Cat freaks out when Jim starts singing "God Bless America". Not because of the first two words, but the last. Just to drive the point in, a Hammer and Sickle appears behind him.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The comic opens with the Queen hiring Psycrow to test out the suit's power, which he uses to blow up a nearby planet. This prompts What's-Her-Name to take off with it so no other planet suffers the same fate.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Psycrow has the ability to speak with the spirits of deceased crows and isn't happy when he meets the one who met its end at the hands of Jim's gun.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: In the first issue, Psycrow bites Jim in half, although Jim is still able to survive with just his head, and the heroes mourn the loss of Jim's butt.
• Heel–Face Turn: Proto Pooch betrays Psycrow and the queen and embraces the name Jim gave him, Peter Puppy.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When Psycrow is about to destroy the earth using the suit's power again, Jim sacrifices himself by using himself as bait to distract Psycrow, taking the full brunt of the blast instead. It not only saves the Earth, but also destroys much of the queen's ship and causes her to lose the suit once again.
• Hulk Speak: Peter Puppy does this whenever he's in his monstrous form.
• Humans Are Ugly: Similar to the cartoon, What's-Her-Name is seen as a hideous abomination by the other Insecticans for her human-like features, and has left the poor girl with some serious self-esteem issues.
• Idiot Hero: Jim's kindness is only rivaled by how childish and naive he is, which is justified because he's thrown straight into the foray within hours of just being born.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Jim decries himself as a cannibal moments after being born after he accidentally eats another worm while eating dirt.
• Improvised Weapon: When his house is being attacked by monster crows, Farmer Jim grabs Snott and uses him as a whip.
• Innocently Insensitive: When Farmer Jim offers Jim and the princess a bed for the night, Jim believes they can both sleep on it, or she can sleep on top of him since "it can hold a lot of weight". She slaps him so hard that he has to find his eyes and mouth.
• Jekyll & Hyde: Proto Pooch/Peter Puppy. Like the cartoon, he can be brought back to normal when he's tickled.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: After disintegrating Evil's army of lawyers with his Plasma Blaster, Jim finds a sheet of paper from amongst the ashes. It's was an N.D.A to the "EWJ game", signed by none other than Doug TenNapel. Jim then questions who Doug is and what "EWJ" stands for.
• Love at First Sight: You guessed it. Jim immediately falls for the Princess the moment he lays eyes on her and is more concerned about winning her over than saving the world.
• Meaningful Rename: Not knowing what "P.P." stands for, Jim gives Proto Pooch the name Peter Puppy instead. Proto then abandons his old name when he switches sides and embraces the name Jim gave him, Peter.
• Mobile Shrubbery: Psycrow moves in a bush to get his blaster back after his fight with a bull.
• My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: Jim experiences this when Proto Pooch goes into monster mode and tries to eat him. He recalls everything that happened, and since he's been alive for four hours, it's not much.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: After Jim spares Proto Pooch and has him run away, he tries fooling the princess by blasting his gun into the air, and the light it gives off alerts Psycrow to his presence.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: One of the lawyers in Heck is a caricature of Nick Rekieta.
• Offing the Offspring: Queen Slug-For-A-Butt was willing to have her own daughter killed by destroying a planet with her on it. It ends up being a Subverted Trope when the next issue reveals the princess isn't her actual daughter.
• Parental Bonus
  • When Jim and the gang see a bull...
    Jim: Look! It's my father!
    Farmer Jim: Bull!
    Jim: No, seriously, he's my pop!
  • In one scene, Earthworm Jim invites Princess What's-Her-Name to sleep on the couch with him. What's-Her-Name thought it wouldn't be appropriate and the couch might be too small for both of them. To which Jim responds, "Not if you sleep on top of me!" The princess blushes in embarrassment.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: The whole comic is filled with these. One example is when Psycrow retrieves his blaster and is about to be attacked by the bull again, he says "Time for you to meat my little friend!" as he blasts it and turns it into a literal stack of hamburgers.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Queen Slug-For-A-Butt possesses four large ones.
• Reluctant Hero: When the princess confronts him, Jim isn't interested in fighting evil or anyone else for that matter, but wants to have fun. Then again, he's been alive for three hours.
• Sadistic Choice: When Proto Pooch is revealed to be a spy for the queen, What's-Her-Name presents Jim with one: Either he kills him or loses her, Snott, Farmer Jim and everything he loves about the planet. Jim does take P.P. out back but can't go through with killing his friend who almost accidentally killed him.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When Evil the Cat gets the suit and learns that the Queen plans to blow up Earth, he ditches the suit and returns to Heck where he can avoid Armageddon.
• Sequel Hook: At the end of Launch the Cow, Jim actually dies saving the world, but the suit happens to crash on where his butt is buried, reviving him.
• Sickeningly Sweet: Invoked at the beginning when Psycrow tests out a suit to destroy a planet, which What's-Her-Name says is filled with pastel-colored ponies, unicorns, and pegasuses who apply glitter on each other.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: A giant snowman appears and attempts to attack Earthworm Jim, but then it immediately melts because it showed up in a fiery place. This was lampshaded by Jim afterwards...
  Jim: He had a snow-ball's chance in a hot place... like a desert or Venus or something.
• Title Drop: When the suit returns to earth again, a cow gets launched high into the air. And that happens at the very end of the book!
• Toilet Humor:
  • When Psycrow is attacked by a bull, he lands face-first in some of its poop. Luckily he had his glass helmet on.
  • Evil the Cat has Jim clean up his litter box for him, and it takes him 697 years to clean it all.
  • Jim also gets into Psycrow's ship by going through the toilet, and wonders when Psycrow had time to eat garlic.
• Too Hungry to Be Polite: What's-Her-Name spits out her food when she discovers how wonderful eating mashed potatoes and gravy together tastes like, shocking everyone else at the table.
• Winged Soul Flies Off at Death: Happens to the Earth crow that tries to eat a newly mutated Jim, who is blasted into smithereens for his troubles. It then flies off into space and finds Psycrow, informing him of Jim's existence and kicking off the rest of the plot.
• Would Harm a Senior: Psycrow is especially very cruel towards Farmer Jim; The moment he meets the farmer, Psycrow holds him at gunpoint and threatened him to sit back down when he tried to leave the bar. Then much later, Psycrow destroys the farmer's house from his spaceship with sadistic glee, as payback for being in league with Earthworm Jim. The most disturbing case is during a fight scene between Psycrow and Princess What's-Her-Name. When Farmer Jim rushes in to help the princess, Psycrow beats the living crap out of him, even while he's already down, all while telling him to stay on the ground until the Earth blows up. The beatdown only lasts until Peter Puppy rushes in to save Jim.
• Would Hit a Girl: Psycrow goes one-on-one with the princess in a fistfight, but given that he's in the suit, he gets the better of her.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Jim spends 627 years in Heck cleaning Evil the Cat's kitty litter box, then comes to the realization that Princess is already centuries dead. He's conveniently informed that barely any time has passed on earth since Heck is in another dimension.
• Zero-Effort Boss: Remember that snowman mid-boss in the fires of Heck? Here, it melts the moment it appears.

Book 2: Fight the Fish

• Anthropomorphic Transformation: ​After Peter Puppy discovers that the Queen created Bob from fairy dust, he uses it on himself in an attempt to cure himself of his monster form, which mutates his appearance to that on the cartoon show
• Bestiality Is Depraved: When Launa (who is revealed to be fully human) kisses Jim to help snap out of his hypnosis, every witness (except for Snott) reacts with disgust.
• Blank White Eyes: Bob's cat slaves are given these as a result of their mind control.
• Calling the Old Woman Out: The princess lays a big one to the Queen at the end of the second issue, now that she knows the truth behind her past, and swears to destroy her.
• Contrived Coincidence: Launa is thrown in prison right next to an earth fairy who turns out to be her real mother. Alaura just happens to be the ex-wife Farmer Jim spoke about, making him Launa's real father.
• Death Amnesia: Downplayed; After Earthworm Jim comes back to life, he only remembers everything leading up to Psycrow chomping him in half; meaning that he can’t remember that he spent 627 years cleaning up Evil the Cat’s litter box, and his death on Queen Slug-for-a-Butt’s ship. He only regains all his memories after Launa kisses him, albeit reluctantly.
• Facepalm: Farmer Jim does this with Earthworm Jim leaves Planeta de Agua and ends up causing more destruction in the process.
• Fun with Flushing: Jim discovers a giant plug on Planeta de Agua, and uses it to drain the water from the flooded planet and free its inhabitants from Bob's control. Peter lampshades how fast the water drained and how cartoonish the effect was.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: When Jim returns in the second issue and is too afraid to go after the princess after she's kidnapped, Farmer Jim slaps him to snap him out of it.
• Groin Attack: The princess delivers one to one of Bob's cat slaves when they attempt to kidnap her.
• He Is Not My Boyfriend: When Jim tells Bob's cat slaves not to touch his girlfriend, the princess retorts that they're not going out.
• Human All Along: Fight the Fish reveals that Princess What's-Her-Name was kidnapped by Slug-For-A-Butt, and was actually born from a human father and a fairy mother, making her half-human and half-fairy. In terms of appearance, she's indistinguishable from any other human.
• Hypnotic Eyes: Bob the Killer Goldfish uses these to enter people's minds, and manages to control and enslave them by tapping into their deepest fears.
• I Am Not Pretty: At the beginning of Fight the Fish, after finding a dress that belonged to Farmer Jim's ex-wife, the Princess is hesitant to put it on because she's been told all her life that she's ugly. After Farmer Jim convinces her otherwise, everyone at the breakfast table is stunned at how gorgeous she looks.
• I Control My Minions Through...: Bob can only control others by tapping into their fear. Once he learned that cats fear water, he was able to enslave an entire planet filled with them.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Peter Puppy sees himself as a monster and just wants to be normal, and isn't happy when his attempts to cure himself don't work out.
• Irony: When she's kidnapped by Bob, the Princess asks how any self-respecting cat takes orders from a goldfish.
• Just Desserts: Like the second game, Bob ends up being eaten, but by Number 4.
• Kiss of Distraction: After Jim is put under Bob's mind control, the Princess gives Jim a big smooch to snap him out of it. It works, and she insists there was no romantic intent behind it.
• Meaningful Rename: To hide her from the Queen's forces, Farmer Jim decides to give Princess What's-Her-Name a different name: Launa. The princess is quick to embrace her new name, especially when she discovers Slug-For-A-Butt was never her real mother, and Farmer Jim happens to be her real father.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • On Planeta de Agua, Jim decides to hide himself, Farmer Jim, and the Princess in a prison cell. They get locked up.
  • Upon leaving Planet de Agua, Jim crashes the ship into a statue, causing a domino effect as more end up getting destroyed.
• Not Quite Dead: In Fight the Fish, everyone's surprised to see that Jim's alive and well after he died at the end of the previous story.
• Papa Wolf: In Fight the Fish, Farmer Jim isn't happy after his daughter kisses Jim, and takes it out on him instead.
• The Power of Friendship: What ultimately helps Jim overcome his fear of Bob is that his friends have his back.
• The Power of Love: To snap Jim out of Bob's mind control, Launa kisses Jim on the lips, and as far as he's concerned, it was love that did the trick.
• Psychological Horror: There are some scenes where Jim hallucinates Psycrow after a bad experience with getting chomped in half by the evil space crow.
• Slave Mooks: The giant cats that Bob controls with his mind are this.
• Spoiler Cover: The stylized package the book came out of included a panel when Farmer Jim slaps Earthworm Jim and accuses him of kissing his daughter. It’s not hard to guess who the farmer’s daughter is.
• Turned Against Their Masters: Once Jim frees everyone from Bob's mind control and no longer fear him, they quickly turn on him.
• You Are Number 6: Bob's cat slaves all go by different numbers, which quickly gets confusing when they refer to using the bathroom as going "Number One" or "Number Two".