In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, discover the surprising comic book origins of SpongeBob Squarepants.
In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, discover the surprising comic book origins of SpongeBob Squarepants.
Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and fifty-fourth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends.
NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I'll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!
SpongeBob Squarepants began life as an educational comic book.
SpongeBob Squarepants creator Stephen Hillenburg was a brilliant cartoon writer and animator who tragically passed away in 2018 from ALS. He had one of the more unusual origins of animators out there, as he described to Michael Cavna of the Washington Post back in 2009:
Cavna: You studied marine biology before going to CalArts for animation, of course. Had you always been interested in animation, though?
Hillenburg: Hugely. I definitely was interested and became real interested [when I started going] to animation festivals. I went to the Tournee festival and the Spike & Mike festival in the '80s right before. I was working at Ocean Institute -- I was a marine biologist, but I was trying to figure out [how to get to] art school. It was at those festivals ... that I thought: This is what i want to do. When I was at one of those shows, I saw several films ... made at Cal Arts ... and thought: That's were should I go.
In the '70s, as a kid, someone took me to a Tournee of Animation festival at the L.A. County Museum of Art. There, the foreign films -- I was knocked out by that, especially [Dutch animator] Paul Driessen. His ["The Killing of An Egg"]. ... That was the film that I thought was uniquely strange and that lodged itself in my head early on. I was interested in drawing my whole life. I dunno -- it didn't help me till later, when I rediscovered Driessen.
Cavna: So you become a marine biologist. How do you move into studying experimental animation at CalArts and considering it as a career?
Hillenburg: Honestly, I hadn't looked into the logistics and income. I just knew that's what I wanted to do. I thought, at least, I could get a job cleaning up somebody's drawings. ... Then, there was "The Simpsons" and "Ren & Stimpy" -- everyone was excited about the rebirth of the form. My timing was perfect. I didn't look at the career aspect -- it was what I was interested in doing. I was planning on being a starving artist. ... [I spent] several thousand dollars to make a film and [realized] I may not make it back -- I had loans out. Fortunately, Joe Murray [creator of Nickelodeon's "Rocko's Modern Life"] saw my film at Ottawa and a couple of my shorts and he took a huge chance. I didn't know how to storyboard -- I still don't. It was like perfect timing.
As it turned out, Hillenburg's time as a marine biologist also tied into the world of comic books, which led to the creation of SpongeBob Squarepants!RELATED:Was a Donald Duck Comic Book Story Later Published as a...Jetsons Story?! While working at the Orange County Marine Institute (now known as the Ocean Institute), Hillenburg had to a lot of teaching tor kids. He later recalled, "We taught tide-pool ecology, nautical history, diversity and adaptation. Working there, I saw how enamored kids are with undersea life, especially with tide-pool creatures" Being a talented artist, Hillenburg was often asked to draw stuff for the Institute. Well, one day one of his supervisors said that he should use his skills to draw an educational comic book for kids. He later recalled in Spongebob Comics #1, a comic book that he published in 2011, "I drew it while teaching at what is now called the Ocean Institute, to help explain the life of organisms living in tide pools along the Southern California coast in an entertaining way."RELATED: Did DC Once Produce a Superman Issue Hidden From the Editor of the Comic? In Spongebob Comics #1, Hilleneberg later recalled, "I had teachers in high school who knew I was interested in art and marine biology, and they would say, 'You could draw fish for a living!' and I just thought that sounded boring. I could never have predicted that these two interests would later converge in the form of an animated series and a comic book."The comic book was "hosted" by two anthropomorphic marine life, Rocko the Shrimp and Bob the Sponge. Here is Bob the Sponge...Years later, while working on Rocko's Modern Life, staff writer Martin Olson (father of the great Olivia Olson, the voice of the iconic Marceline the Vampire Queen on Adventure Time. Martin Olson also does the voice of Marceline's father, Hunson Abadeer), saw the comic and told Hillenburg that he should make a cartoon based on the concept and, well, the rest is, as they say, history (although, of course, the characters in the original comic book were all dramatically different looking in the cartoon). Thanks to Michael Cavna and the late, great Stephen Hillenburg for the information!
Check out some entertainment legends from Legends Revealed:1. Did Steven Spielberg Want to Direct the First Superman Movie as a Musical?2. Did Ronnie Van Zandt Have to Have a Closed Casket Funeral Because His Body Was Badly Disfigured in his Fatal Plane Crash?3. Did Alec Guinness Come Up With the Idea for Obi-Wan Kenobi to Die in Star Wars?4. Did a Mute Man Speak for the First Time in Over Five Years After Riding the Cyclone?
Check back soon for part 2 of this installment's legends! Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com
CBR Senior Writer Brian Cronin has been writing professionally about comic books for over fifteen years now at CBR (primarily with his “Comics Should Be Good” series of columns, including Comic Book Legends Revealed). He has written two books about comics for Penguin-Random House – Was Superman a Spy? And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed and Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent? And Other Amazing Comic Book Trivia! and one book, 100 Things X-Men Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, from Triumph Books. His writing has been featured at ESPN.com, the Los Angeles Times, About.com, the Huffington Post and Gizmodo. He features legends about entertainment and sports at his website, Legends Revealed and other pop culture features at Pop Culture References. Follow him on Twitter at @Brian_Cronin and feel free to e-mail him suggestions for stories about comic books that you'd like to see featured at brianc@cbr.com!
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