Buy new:
$19.98$19.98
FREE delivery: Friday, Feb 10 on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon.
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
Buy Used: $11.29

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.


Ratfist Paperback – January 3, 2012
Price | New from | Used from |
Kindle & Comixology
"Please retry" | — | — |
- Kindle & Comixology
$15.99 Read with Our Free App - Paperback
$19.98
Enhance your purchase
- Earthworm Jim creator Doug Tennapel is publishing his Webcomic Ratfist, a vigilante-in-tights that satirizes comics, politics, philosophy, and even Tennapel himself! Featuring a forward written by MST3K/RiffTraxx's Michael J. Nelson, and pin-ups by Ryan Ottley, Scott Kurtz, Christopher Hastings, and Ethan Nicolle.
- Print length176 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherImage Comics
- Publication dateJanuary 3, 2012
- Reading age13 - 16 years
- Dimensions7 x 1 x 10 inches
- ISBN-101607064782
- ISBN-13978-1607064787
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together
- +
- +
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Product details
- Publisher : Image Comics; Illustrated edition (January 3, 2012)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 176 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1607064782
- ISBN-13 : 978-1607064787
- Reading age : 13 - 16 years
- Item Weight : 14.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 7 x 1 x 10 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,317,327 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #905 in Graphic Novel Anthologies (Books)
- #1,295 in Image Comics & Graphic Novels
- #20,718 in Superhero Comics & Graphic Novels
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Doug TenNapel (born July 10, 1966) makes books and is an artist best known for creating GEAR, Earthworm Jim, The Neverhood, Cardboard and Nickelodeon's Catscratch. His work in animation helped him learn how to draw characters which helped him break into comic books. He worked in television animation and video games which helped sharpen his writing and character creation abilities. He created pixel art for video games for companies like BlueSky, Electronic Arts and Dreamworks.
The most frequent question Doug is asked by kids is, "Where do you get your ideas?" His answer is that he usually gets his ideas from things he loves: his friends, animals and classic literature.
Doug is 6'8" and does not play basketball. Due to his height, Doug often has characters that are at odds with their environment. So many readers of Doug's books said they could relate to his stories no matter their background, that Doug realized NEARLY EVERYONE feels out of place in some way. He believes this is the secret to his stories speaking to so many different kinds of people around the world.
Doug TenNapel has been married for twenty seven years to a magical woman he refers to as "the Beloved Mrs. TenNapel" and they have four children (two girls and two boys) aged ten to sixteen. Doug has a sense of wonder about even the most normal aspects of the world and tries to bring a fresh look at our lives to show that they are actually miraculously amazing. His favorite author is G.K. Chesterton who wrote books like Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man which had influence on C.S. Lewis and Tolkien.
Doug has completed five marathons, raises amphibians as pets art, loves to fish, paints in oils, has worked on ten video games and authored over sixteen graphic novels! He has a Facebook page in case you want to see his live art sessions.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Ratfist began as a webcomic that released one page a day, so there is a gag at the end of almost every page. In this way, it kept me constantly laughing. Not all of the humor is simple gags, however. TenNapel takes shots at everything from politics to religion (but not in an offensive way) and also includes plenty of situational humor. Even some of the illustrations made me laugh; they can be crazy!
The art style is chaotic, but not sloppy. The colors are spectacular. As an cartoonist myself, I was able to greatly enjoy its beauty while reading. The characters are very expressive.
The story is interesting. It starts off being relatable, being about a relationship, but then it gets crazy, then crazier, then insanity ensues, but closes quietly - the ending is so touching it almost made me cry.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who isn't uber-sensitive to political or religious issues (you'd have to be pretty serious to be offended by this light-hearted humor, though). It's worth the money, and is readable multiple times (I keep discovering deeper ideas re-reading it).
Because it's Doug you know that the story will take care of you and bring it all together to a satisfying end.
As insane and ridiculous as the setup and universe is that he creates, the story ends very seriously, with themes of sacrifice, friendship and courage.
If I had to tell you what it was about in one sentence, it would go something like this:
Even the most selfish of us can surprise and confuse those who think that honor, love, and hope are fictional.
The book has all sorts of extras as mentioned in the description. I poured over the web comic when it was online -- but I am very glad to have the book in my collection.
If you haven't read anything from TenNapel, this could be a good first graphic novel to tryout.
Top reviews from other countries

Ce "roman graphique" publié en 2011 a été conçu originellement comme un "web comics", le premier réalisé par TenNapel, à raison d'une page mise en ligne par jour ouvrable et ouvré pendant six mois. Ceci l'a occupé entre la parution des deux excellents "graphic novels" que sont ' Bad Island ' (2011) et ' Cardboard ' (2012). Si le scénario et les dessins sont de TenNapel, il convient de citer également sa collaboratrice Katherine Garner pour les très belles couleurs.
L'éditeur Image Comics range ce livre dans la catégorie "Superhero", ce qu'il n'est qu'en surface et, encore, sous l'angle parodique. Mais, à nouveau, l'étiquette "parodie" ne suffit pas à empaqueter cet ouvrage difficilement résumable. Essayons tout de même.
Le personnage principal, Ricky, travaille le jour à la Simian Ichtus Corporation mais revêt la nuit la défroque du super-héros Ratfist, pour redresser les tords accompagné de son sidekick, un rattus norvegicus de belle taille nommé Milt. L'histoire commence au moment où Ricky explique à Milt qu'il va arrêter de faire le super-héros pour proposer le mariage à son amie Gina qu'il courtise depuis 8 ans. Et Gina a horreur des rats... Mais avant cela, Ratfist et Milt se lancent dans une dernière aventure, découvrir la clé du succès de l'entreprise qui l'emploie...
Lors de sa visite nocturne à la corporation, Ratfist va effectivement trouver... une clé au motif de Tiki hawaïen mais va aussi être mordu par un rat piégé auquel il voulait porter secours. Plus que ça, ledit rat va tout simplement fusionner avec Ricky, entraînant quelques heures plus tard, en plein dîner en tête à tête avec Gina, une transformation physique bien malvenue.
Par la suite, aidé par deux geeks de ses amis, Ricky va tenter de retrouver forme humaine ainsi que ce qu'ouvre la clé, finissant ainsi par tomber sur Space Tiki, un Tiki vivant qui, comme son nom l'indique se révélera particulièrement "space", l'entraînant dans un ensemble d'aventures et de découvertes. A un moment, Ratfist va se retrouver dans le futur et s'apercevoir que Gina s'est mariée mais pas avec lui, qu'elle est devenue maman mais hélas qu'elle est atteinte d'un cancer en phase terminale. Ratfist va derechef s'efforcer de trouver le remède au cancer en retrouvant Space Tiki. D'où encore tout un lot d'événements délirants jusqu'à la conclusion.
Ce résumé ne donne pas une idée correcte du livre, j'en ai bien conscience, mais j'avais prévenu que l'exercice était compliqué. Adaptant au web comics la règle séculaire du feuilleton, TenNapel s'efforce de réserver un gag ou un cliffhanger par page, dans une trame générale peut-être encore plus folle que d'habitude, mais aussi plus adulte car abordant en toile de fond les thèmes de la religion, de la maladie, de l'éthique scientifique, de la différence... Ce qui a pu conduire, dans les espaces de dialogue ouverts avec les lecteurs du web comics et ailleurs dans le Web, à une polémique concernant son opinion sur le mariage qui a miné quelque peu l'image de l'auteur auprès de la frange la plus "libérale" (au sens étatsunien) de son lectorat.

"Cardboard" ist im Längen besser

