Tubby Nugget Creators on ‘Big Robot Invasion,’ Finding Community, and Following Your Dreams as an Artist

An impossibly cute blob, Tubby Nugget brings much-needed online positivity with his encouraging and optimistic videos. Tubby Nugget has millions of followers and his own merch, but the creators, Jenine Pastores and Josh Jackson, have ensured that he remains true to his humble, inclusive spirit. Tomorrow, the second Tubby Nugget graphic novel, Big Robot Invasion, is released, and we caught up with Josh and Jenine to talk about the book, finding community, and advice for aspiring animators and artists. 

For people who don't know the story, could you tell us a little bit about how Tubby Nugget came about?

Josh: So it began when Jenine and I met in 2015. We met through the Jubilee Film Fellowship program and we worked really well together. So shortly after we started dating, Jenine would call me a nugget as a nickname. I was like, a nugget? What kind of nickname is that? So I would draw little nuggets on my phone and send it to her anytime she was feeling sad or needed a pick-me-up, or needed a quick laugh. And then she named them Tubby Nuggets.

‍Jenine: So he started making those doodles for me. And the two of us have worked in the creative industry individually and together for a very long time. But in about 2018 or 2019, I ended up getting bedridden for a little bit. And I was told by my doctors to take a step back from doing full-time work in the film industry and just focus on my recovery. So when that was happening, Josh had the idea of, "Hey, I know how much you love making comics together and doing all these fun, silly things. What if we just make Tubby Nugget comics online just to get your mind off of things while you're in your recovery process and see how it makes you feel?"

So we started posting these little nuggets of joy and these silly adventure stories about Tubby on the internet. And then our account started blowing up very quickly and we realized that a lot more people needed that joy than we realized. And so instead of taking a break, we kind of pivoted towards doing Tubby Nugget full-time. And we've been doing it full-time for seven years now.

And what led you to decide to create a graphic novel? 

Jenine: I think the reason for both of us was that as much as we loved being able to tell all these short stories in a comic format online, there's only so much you can do with 10 panels. There's only so much you can do with a short animation, with time constraints. And so a book felt like the perfect crossover between something that's accessible for our audiences, something that kids can pick up, parents can pick up without having to pick up their phone. It also just felt like the perfect way to tell Tubby's story in a longer format. It felt like the natural next step.

Josh: So the first book is about Tubby coming to Earth and it very much is an allegory for an immigrant story. And the second book is about building community.

Jenine: To pick off where the first book left off, Tubby is living on Earth now with all his new friends, and that group of friends is made up of other little aliens who have found their homes on Earth and places that feel like they can be themselves. But there is a character named John. He's a little robot who comes from Tubby's original hometown who is trying to bring Tubby back and doesn't understand why Tubby is so insistent on staying on Earth, and why he's so insistent on just not conforming to his old ways. And it's Tubby and his friends who have the time and the patience to really teach John. what it means to be yourself on Earth. We love the found family tropes. I think the two of us have built a really strong community of people here in Los Angeles. And Josh is originally from New York where he comes from a very huge family.

Josh: There's a lot of really fun stuff in the second book. We had so much fun writing it and we're very excited for people to see it and meet some new characters.

And you alluded to this a little bit with the first one being kind of an immigrant story. How are your own upbringings reflected in these stories of community and inclusion?

Jenine: At least for myself, I see a lot of my parents in Tubby's parents, and I think Josh does as well. In Tubby's origin story, he's being asked to be someone he's not, and it's his parents that really give him the encouragement to do what he wants to do and live outside the norm.

Both our parents were surprisingly extremely supportive when we shifted towards creative work as young adults. I think my parents knew at a very early age that I did not have a knack for a lot of the fields that most of our extended family expected me to wind up in, whether it be the medical field, law, business. Ironically, we're running a business now as well as creative, but I think that because of their encouragement, I feel comfortable calling myself a writer now. I think it's inspired a lot of my own family to also pursue their dreams. I have family members who were once nurses and are now being encouraged by their families to pursue their art and pursue their photography. That means the world to me. But yeah, Tubby's parents are literally named Taba Choi and Taba Ching, which in Tagalog are basically like Tubby and Tubby. I love that little bit.

Josh: I'm actually a fifth generation Chinese American, so my family has been in America for a while. I think there is definitely a bit of a cultural disconnect from where we came from all those generations ago. And Tubby coming to Earth and discovering his own story is something I think a lot of Asian Americans can relate to.

Do you have any advice for aspiring artists and animators out there? 

Jenine: You need to keep creating. I feel like that if we hadn't had the ironic good/bad fortune of my health kind of spurring us towards just needing to create and wanting to put content out there so that I could feel like I was doing something and really filling my cup, we wouldn't have found the following that we do. I think there's so many more people who need your presence online and need your presence in the media who you would not expect share sentiments with your own story. Our audience is very diverse, and so I feel like that's been really exciting for Josh and me. We have people of all ages, people from around the world, and they still relate to that feeling of loneliness and wanting to connect to their culture, wanting to connect with community that we've always yearned for. And of course, we make cartoons for a living. We're extremely silly people. I feel like that's been part of the fun of the job, discovering that a lot of people need to express their inner silly child.

Josh: I think there's a practical side to it with social media. Obviously anyone can post anything, but oftentimes it's the fear of not being good enough or being judged that prevents people from putting stuff out there.

Jenine: Or even the fear of not getting enough engagement. 

‍Josh: Yeah. That's why Instagram gives you the ability to turn off your “like” count. Sometimes just giving ourselves a challenge to make something and post it every day. It doesn't matter how unpolished it is. And we've seen other people do that not to grow Instagram followings. One of my best friends, Brian, did a challenge where he made something on Blender every day, like a 3D render, and then he posted every day and now he's an amazing Blender visual effects director extraordinaire. Just giving yourself that challenge to do that is the fastest way to grow, honestly, any skill. 

"Check in with yourself and see, 'Am I doing something that I love? Does my heart love making this thing? Does my heart enjoy doing this thing?' And if it does, just keep following that because that'll sustain you long term." -Josh Jackson

And the idea of posting every day kind of takes the pressure off, so you're not meticulously crafting a post and then you post it, it gets zero likes and it’s like, "Eh, I want to give up now." It's just like, "Yeah, I'll try better on the next one." I think that's a great mentality. So I feel like that's very practical, but I guess on a deeper level, just check in with yourself and see, “Am I doing something that I love? Does my heart love making this thing? Does my heart enjoy doing this thing?” And if it does, just keep following that because that'll sustain you long term.

One last question. What's next for Tubby Nugget? Do you have any plans for an animated series or anything like that?

Josh: There are things in the works. 

Jenine: I think that the great thing about this industry is—just to highlight some of the things that are happening now—a lot of young creators who have made films for themselves are not from traditional film backgrounds. 

Josh: There's a filmmaker named Alex Ulum. He just did a film called It Ends.

Oh, we just interviewed him. 

‍Josh: I love his work so much. I was a fan of his YouTube videos before I saw the movie.

‍Jenine: A lot of folks who didn't grow up in the traditional industry are now building career paths of their own, and that's something that we've had the good fortune of being able to do. So we are having talks with a lot of bigger companies that are interested in picking up Tubby, whereas before it was, "Oh, we only want to speak with people who have worked under our arm for the last 20 years." And so that's been very exciting to just be in those rooms and feel very seen and feel like our work has a life outside of our own little bubble of making it ourselves. Apart from that, we have another kid's book that we just got signed for. 

Josh: It’s for younger kids, 2-5. This book [Big Robot Invasion] is ages 6-9. 

Jenine: Very excited for all our friends with kids to be stuck rereading them with their kids! We also have a podcast that's in the works, and we're going to be doing a “Tubby Talks” thing, so that way parents can actually listen to Tubby with their kids on their drives to school or just before the day starts to try and lift their mood. We're just basically trying to find all these new mediums to make people's day in different ways.

The Adventures of Tubby Nugget: Big Robot Invasion #2 is out on October 6 and available at all your favorite booksellers.