Thomas Charles "Tom" Fulp (born April 30, 1978), is an American computer programmer and Flash animator. He is the founder, CEO, and sole owner of Newgrounds, and the creator of the Pico franchise. He is also known for co-founding the video game company The Behemoth, and kickstarting the browser game scene in the late 1990s.
History[]
Fulp was born and raised in Perkasie, Pennsylvania, on April 30, 1978. He is of German, British, and Irish descent.[1] As a child, he had suffered from chronic depression. Many events in his childhood, such as watching a baby seal get clubbed on a National Geographic nature show, would shape his future work. His hatred of school began in kindergarten, where he had a strict, authoritarian teacher. In elementary school, he was often out of school sick, possibly due to his depression. It was also during this time that Fulp began creating violent stories and artwork.
In 1991, at the age of 13, Fulp launched a Neo Geo fanzine called New Ground and sent issues to approximately 100 members of a club originating on the online service Prodigy.[2] Around this time, he began animating using an Amiga computer. After being homeschooled during tenth grade, he finished high school and launched a website called New Ground Remix in 1995. At the end of twelfth grade, he created the Club A Seal and Assassin games in HTML, which he then posted on the site. He then created Club a Seal II and Assassin II, along with a separate hosting site titled New Ground Atomix.
In 1996, he went to Drexel University in Pennsylvania for a five-year course. He would drop out in Spring 2000 to make Newgrounds his full-time job, and later return in 2002 to graduate. Fulp later moved to Atlanta, Georgia for nine months before returning to Pennsylvania.
In early 1999, Fulp created the Pico series, which reached peak popularity with the release of Pico's School, a Flash game inspired by the then-recent Columbine High School massacre. Fulp has since submitted many major flashes to Newgrounds, some being collaborations with other Flash artists, and often attends conventions and meets to publicize Newgrounds and the artists there.[3]
In August 2002, Fulp co-created the Flash game Alien Hominid, and would spend about 15 months working with Dan Paladin on developing the game for consoles under The Behemoth; they also produced the console exclusive Castle Crashers.
In July 2021, Fulp received the Pioneer award at the 2021 Game Developers Choice Awards for the creation of Newgrounds and subsequent work in The Behemoth, as well as being a trailblazer of the Macromedia Flash games that helped define a generation of indie developers.[4]
Personal life[]
In the summer of 2003, Fulp met his future wife, April Fulp, who were acquaintances in college. Between 2005 and 2006, he proposed to April, and they were married on May 12, 2007. On March 25, 2009, their son, Liam, was born. His older brother, Wade Fulp, had helped managed Newgrounds as an administrator until 2017.
Trivia[]
External links[]
- Tom Fulp on Wikigrounds
- Tom Fulp's Newgrounds page
- Newgrounds Wiki Bio (archived)
