Some comics I read in 2025: Earthworm Jim
It was only after writing the last blog post about Earthworm Jim comics that I was able to get my peepers on the two recent hardback endeavours, Launch The Cow and Fight The Fish. Rather than limited-series or one-off comic books, these are proper graphic novels, a good 150 pages each of continuous content made to be read in one gulp.
It truly makes the most of its medium, taking the time to really establish a sense of place to every location and setpiece, and how all these seemingly disparate characters and concepts connect together. Aside from a one-shot starring Evil the Cat, I believe this is the first time we’ve seen Doug draw these characters in more than just promo/concept art and animation layouts, and it’s interesting to see him tackle this world with his own vision, warts and idiosyncrasies and all.
Jim’s origin is given a much more robust exploration than in prior depictions (the comic in the game’s manual, and flashbacks in the Marvel run and cartoon), showing the myriad of circumstances surrounding it:
The super suit is powered simply by the will of its wearer, channelling their destructive thoughts towards a target, made for the tyrannical ambitions of Queen Slug-For-A-Butt… only for her daughter, Princess What’s-Her-Name, to take it away from the hands of evil-doers, but a scuffle with Psycrow sends it careening through space.
Before it reaches Earth, the suit lands in the path of the wandering Space Fairy, who imbues it with fairy dust so it may grant life to wherever it lands next — thus, a more fantastical explanation for Jim’s anthropomorphism, I assume to dissuade notions of the technology making the man.
She’s a curious inclusion that also bookends the story, the existence of fairies of slightly more significance in the second book, but I guess it’s nice to know there’s something pure and wholesome out there in space, it’s not all just freaks and warlords.
We literally see the birth of our hero, coming to his senses (such as they are) and soaking in the world around him: mistaking the nearby cows for his parents, turning to the indifferent Farmer Jim for sagely advice, even taking his name from him.
Earthworm Jim’s full of childish wonder and optimism, if also prone to silly outbursts and leaps of logic on account of only being a few hours old by act 3 — like caving in to Psycrow’s demands after he blows up a mechanical bull, thinking it’s his dad. This leads to a ridiculous gag that’s perhaps at odds with the somewhat reined-in tone of the book, which otherwise does little to paint Earth as wacky as these visitors from space, but I can’t say no to a good laugh.
Jim sees the positive in everything, to the point where the Princess needs to teach him about right and wrong — she’s very acquainted with the evil in the world thanks to her genocidal slug-butt mother, and having to babysit this pea-brain in the wake of mercenaries and spies rightfully does her nut in.
Yes, spies — Peter Puppy, aka “Proto Pooch,” is a magical talking dog sent by the Queen to keep tabs on the super suit. He’s pretty candid and laissez-faire about this, and yet as one of the first persons Jim interacted with after being ‘born’, Jim’s unwilling to treat him as an enemy. He’s man’s best friend, after all!
It’s a very sweet take on Jim. Where his classic depiction very much emphasised his wacky demeanour and itchy trigger finger, this grounds him in a way that feels more ‘innocent’. He sees the best in people and the world around him, because what adversity has he faced in his short life?
And when he does face harm, the suit takes over with violent retribution, something he himself is taken aback by; it’s a primal reaction, and learning how and why to use his powers for good is a big turning point, especially when new defence mechanisms are deployed when he least expects it.
Where every other character has been weighed down by the cruelties of life or their duties in some way, Jim’s cheerful attitude stands out, and it helps bring everyone out of their shells. The Princess, an ugly put-upon outcast in her home world, eventually comes to see the good in the world through Jim; he’s the first one to compliment her on her strengths.
Peter Puppy is a mutated freak who’s only followed the orders of despots; he’s never been called a good boy before. Even Farmer Jim, who wants nothing to do with the other Jim at first brush, gets a new zest for life amidst all the explosive chaos he gets swept into.
(I’m told Doug’s work often throws in some unprompted Christian ethics. This and Queen Slug-For-A-Butt exclaiming “thank atheism!” are a smidge egregious, but I’d consider it an amusing talking point more than anything objectionable)
For all his manic randomness, Jim is a force of good in just his mannerisms, even before he gets into the heroics and fisticuffs. The ’90s loved these wacky irreverent heroes, and obviously audiences enjoyed them, but I have to wonder if the in-universe cast would ever get sick of their company. It’s nice to see him fleshed out like this, even if his childish infatuation with being boyfriends with the Princess is a hill he has to get over.
It’s a lively and refreshing take on the setting, one that takes what we know of this origin story and expands it in every possible angle, truly making the most of every plot beat. I wouldn’t quite call it decompressed storytelling, but it does a terrific job telling what it wants without feeling too crunched or too lethargic. It’s spaced very nicely, allowing all the beats to land the way they should.
It’s an odd compliment to make, but it’s refreshing to see something that’s clearly adept at being a comic — it’s not a battle between writer and artist and publisher, it’s just the right size for it to have satisfying arcs for all its themes and character growth.
‘Cause that’s the thing, the book does a tremendous job making everything feel connected in some way — all their paths and themes loop around or tie together. Everyone has a reason to be there, and a meaningful connection to one another, whether they think much of it or not. Psycrow might be a small-buttons merc, but he makes a natural nemesis to Jim, alike and dissimilar in all the right ways, and Jim vowing to avenge his fellow worms is what spurs him to rise to the call of duty.
(the rapid-fire checklist of references in Heck are what I’d call egregious and distracting, including a gag about Doug’s NDA with Shiny, and this awfully pointed-looking lawyer caricature that doesn’t sit well)
Even characters like Professor Monkey-For-A-Head that few of the cast actually interact with, you can see the knock-on effect of his creations that lead others to where they are now, from everyone wanting a piece of the super-suit pie, to Peter Puppy’s angst over being a mutated monster (i assume, the book doesn’t connect the dots, but it’d be thematic!).
Even Snott finds a niche as the Princess’ multi-purpose tool, her more dextrous equivalent to Jim’s Big Red Gun. The world of Earthworm Jim and its rogues’ gallery are such a big part of its appeal to me, completely disjointed as it may be, and this story truly hits a homerun making the most of its interplay and slotting everything into place.
The final act does get a bit screwy, though. There’s a long diversion into Heck where Jim toils under Evil the Cat for six hundred years, hoping to make himself ‘whole’ after being bitten in half by Psycrow. It’s a quirky intermission and very much embracing its comic sensibilities, favouring wackiness above all else — it’s just a bit at odds with the stakes at this point, and basically puts the brakes on the plot for a couple dozen pages. It does contribute to Jim’s character development, it’s just a bit out of nowhere, is all.
Psycrow steals the show in my book. He’s a perfect encapsulation of Doug’s fun design trends, tailor-made for fun expressions and goofy shapes as gets pummelled or into mischief. What’s not to like about the big rotund jerkass? Characters like him, Jim, and Evil the Cat already had their designs nailed back in the ’90s, and they translate to comic form perfectly, truly making the most of their expressive shapes.
The rest of the cast are adapted to fit his modern style; most notably the Princess. No longer an outrageous Tex Avery hourglass figure, but a more expressive and dynamic action girl, one that lends itself better to adventure and her more human side of the story, despite her alien mannerisms.
As for the more monstrous characters, you can trust them to be even more monstrous now, less defined shapes like the cartoon and more cacophonies of gristle, eyeballs and fangs… except for Professor Monkey-For-A-Head, who loses the hunchback and looks like a Steven Universe character for some reason.
It’s not without its bumps, but this was a surprisingly satisfying read. Where was this comic back in 1995? It’s obviously had twenty years of churning in his brain to reach this present state, but in terms of art and especially in storytelling, this is as good an Earthworm Jim story as I could hope for. I truly wasn’t expecting something this cohesive in its arcs and themes! To even think an Earthworm Jim story would have those things!
Obviously its cartoon qualities aren’t as constant or overt as prior media, but this is such an appealing way of handling the property, allowing its tones and facets to breathe and all feel rich in their own right. It fleshes things out! It’s still funny, but I care now! Wow!
… which is why the second volume, Fight The Fish, is so frustrating to evaluate. It was not as fulfilling as the first book, to put it politely. In less kind words, I might say it shat the bed and nulled my interest in seeing this story taken further. But we’ll get to that.
Jim sent the Queen packing and Psycrow frying last time, but gave his life in the process, the empty super-suit falling back to earth… with a little bit of fairy dust in it. As it turns out, his bitten-off butt came into contact with it and Jim’s alive again, only without his memories past the moment of chomping, and with none of his bravado.
This is unfortunate, as the Princess (or Launa as she’s dubbed by Farmer Jim) is kidnapped by Bob the Killer Goldfish to lure Jim to Planeta de Agua, which he’s ruling through fear and terror… and the new Jim’s awful susceptible to that sort of thing. He’s told he killed him, but he still has recurring waking nightmares of Psycrow, and he’s not as daring or dashing as he was the last time the stakes were high.
This one expounds a little more on the fairy stuff, even without the Space Fairy making an appearance. The power of fairy dust is shown in how it not only transformed an ordinary goldfish into the malicious Bob we know now (applied by Queen Slug-For-A-Butt), but a single particle powers his entire aquatic city — and wishing upon it is all it takes to turn Peter into an allegedly less monstrous form.
Meanwhile, the Princess’ cellmate turns out to be her birth mother Alaura, the former queen of Planet Insectica, who is not just Farmer Jim’s missing wife, but also the fairy guardian of Earth, making her daughter half-fairy. None of this is really elaborated upon, if being a fairy grants her special powers or anything, I assume it’s just to make her feel better after a lifetime of being considered a freak on her home planet.
My takeaway from this book is that it throws a lot of ideas around, but it doesn’t quite have the through-line — or even the heart — to make it work like the last one did. I think it’s partly down to the cast. Where every character felt interwoven into the story and each other’s destinies in the last book, we haven’t nearly the same investment in the newcomers.
We’ve just met Bob, so of course he’s not going to be as ingrained into the dynamics as the previous baddies. It tries to instil him as a psychological terror to Jim, and lightly touches on Peter’s natural distaste for cats, but it feels half-hearted.
That, and Jim’s not the same character any more. He has to spend the whole book relearning how to be Jim, since he lost all his bloody character development! He never reaches the same heart as he did last time, and because he’s taken a level in dumbass, the rest of the cast have to step up to task, feeling more like tools and less like characters because of it. It should be neat seeing the sidekicks rise to the occasion, but Peter and Farmer Jim can’t quite carry a story.
Peter Puppy and Snott make a fun duo in that he wears the green globule like a skin, using it to disguise himself among the cats or crawl along the ceiling. He does largely serve as Mr. Exposition though, learning the planet’s lore from its security computers.
Seeing the power of fairy dust and reminded of his monstrous condition in Bob’s rise to evil, he wishes upon it to be “cured”, mutating into the cartoon dog form we’re more familiar with, though not resolving the turning-into-a-monster thing, which was his real bugbear.
Seeing the ‘mechanics’ of these villains is neat, I’ll give it that: we see a lot of Bob’s lair, and controlling the cats through fear is depicted appropriately wickedly. Queen Slug-For-A-Butt creating Bob and setting him loose truly paints her as an agent of chaos, disrupting pockets of the universe however she see fit. So many villains want to rule the universe, but it’s neat seeing the process for this one planet, utilising its quirks against it and paving the way for domination…!
For having a lot less story and exposition to cram in, it somehow feels like it’s flailing to make the most of what it’s working with. Like, the only loose thread in the first book was Jim finding a rocket while in Farmer Jim’s shed, and stowing it in his pocket. His iconic pocket rocket! It sees no use in that story, despite being visible when Jim stows aboard Psycrow’s ship in said pocket.
Surely it’s going to be deployed in an exciting moment to justify this Chekov’s Gun in their literal back pocket, right? Well, they use it to repair a ship so they can get the story started. Oh. Not quite the rip-roaring action setpiece I was hoping for.
Likewise, I’m not sure what the Princess reuniting with her mother adds to the story…? While in previous media she and Queen Slug-For-A-Butt were sisters, the last book retconned the Queen as her “mother”, then this quickly mentions she stole her from her family and “I never knew my real parents,” literally panels before Alaura introduces herself.
And then… not much! They barely interact for the rest of the book! Farmer Jim also gets his reunion, also getting minimal interaction with her, and then the two stay behind to rehabilitate the planet after it’s freed from Bob’s flood. It writes her in and just as quickly writes her out before she even makes an impression.
Before that swerve, it helped establish the trio as ‘freaks’ who didn’t belong — the Princess a human among bugs, Jim a worm of higher intelligence (dubious as it may be), and Peter a monster with angst over his condition, wanting to fit in among hominids. What might be considered a failing is also a valuable asset, something to control and embrace to make the most of their capabilities.
I guess the other theme it’s trying to run with is everybody having a ‘home’ that respects them: Launa gets a happy answer to feeling like an outcast, and I suppose Jim’s encounter with the sandworms in Heck is his closest equivalent. The ending sets up their next destination as Canis Majoris, to find the answer to Peter’s struggles, which I fear would just play out like the third issue of the Marvel Comics run again.
After all the reunions, Peter bemoans he never knew his parents, and he’d hoped to be cured of his monsterism before seeing them. Alaura consoles him:
It’s a decent sentiment and can certainly be applied to our heroic trio… but I don’t know, it just comes across a bit ham-fisted. I figure nobody’s had a conversation about Peter’s condition yet — him turning into a monster did save Jim from Psycrow, but otherwise it’s just a violent interruption they have to resolve by tickling him. It could be an asset and something he could benefit from, but nobody’s had the time to have that discussion yet!
I think it just hits the wrong way hearing it from Doug, knowing the man’s unfortunate politics and behaviour on social media. This fairy godmother (whose virtuous qualities as only said and not shown) deciding who’s good and who’s actually an irredeemable ghoul doesn’t read as noble if you’ve seen his Twitter feed. But I digress.
The book’s clearly angling for some sort of themes, but there just isn’t the same richness or payoff to them as last time. There’s something about a sense of belonging, from the family reunions to why the cats gave in to Bob’s mind control, but it simply doesn’t explore any of it as efficiently as last time.
The character dynamics being completely trashed doesn’t help. Losing Psycrow as a comedic villain is a tremendous bummer, and while both books are no stranger to dumb references and fanservice (“Look at the foil, Jim! It’s entertaining!” “Shiny… entertainment!” “That’s an odd interplay of words.”), it makes the finale feel that bit weaker without the strong emotional core.
As you’d expect, the art is as good as ever. Doug’s a capable comics artist — great compositions, angles, the works. Visually it looks the biz. The second one has much more action to work with, from their stint in the bathosphere to a battle with a giant hamster, both inside and out…
… but I do think the sense of heart is what made the first book so distinctive. Finally, a world worth being emotionally invested in! I can see people taking umbrage with its methodical pace and changes to the status quo, but I like that it feels fresh; it’s giving us new and revamped material to chew on, not just the same old familiar sights. It gives me a reason to care for this cast as characters, not just cartoons!
And the follow-up basically drops the ball on all that. It comes across like it’s a journey towards more ‘lore-accurate’ depictions, what with pantsless Peter Puppy and Jim with a few screws loose, but I also care a lot less. We’ve seen that already! I liked that the first book did things differently!
Fight The Fish just felt shockingly aimless at times, or at least muddy and unfocused. Either straining for themes and not executing them satisfactorily, or banking on a third book to flesh out what it couldn’t do already in 154 pages.
The first book came out in 2019 and the next in 2021, both funded via Kickstarter. Around that time there was that fandango with a new game allegedly coming to the Intellivision Amico, which might’ve been unrelated to the other project hyped on Twitter that went nowhere? Point is, there’s been attempts to make more Jim but no word of a new comic, as far as I’m aware, and I don’t think we’re missing much.
While the second book wasn’t without merit, it really dampened my enthusiasm for further stories in this setting. A trilogy might sand off its rough edges, but that also sounds a lot like sunk cost fallacy. Why settle for damaged goods when I can look elsewhere, or just make my own shit?
I’m glad I read the first book, and it’ll probably be the only non-animated media in the series I’ll return to. I’d dare argue it’s a great one to study, how it juggles so many factors but still reads crisp and clear without feeling cluttered; not ’til the Evil the Cat intermission, at least. Fight The Fish just kind of flops, and I don’t care to think about it.
