I was once described as a living cartoon partly because of my enthusiasm and partly because of a very expressive face highlighted by two heavy black eyebrows that are constantly in motion as if they were two caterpillars in heat. However, I have appeared as a literal cartoon character. My friend Mark Evanier without my knowledge put me in DYNOMUTT #2 (Marvel Comics January 1977) in a story drawn by Dan Spiegle called “Identity Crisis” where a talk show hostess is trying to unmask the true identity of the Blue Falcon. I am one of the suspects (along with three other friends Gary Brown, Jeff Wasserman and Alan Hutchinson who along with me were all members of the same comic book apa at the time) as well as Radley Crown who was the real Blue Falcon. Interestingly, the caricature in the comic book looks pretty close to what I looked like at the time: more hair and less poundage than today’s version. Evanier also took me by surprise again when he included me in GROO THE WANDERER #7 (Pacific Comics, February 1984) where my name was used as the name of a village that was being sacked, looted and pillaged. Then in THE PHANTOM #6 (DC Comics, August 1989) my friend Mark Verheiden (who now writes for SMALLVILLE) cast me as steersman for a boat transporting toxic waste to be dumped in Africa. And that is only the tip of the iceberg.
I’ve even written a few comic books including some Tiny Toons stories for Warner Brothers International that I am particularly proud of and am very thankful to editor Katie Main for her guidance and support which she supplied at the time. Some of you may know that I also wrote over fifty historical introductions to different comic book collections published by Malibu Graphics as well as several dozen more that were never published. One of my greatest regrets is a comic book series that I pitched to Malibu that was animation related than never got published. I think all writers have projects that they loved and think are the greatest projects of all time but none of them have been given an outlet at jimhillmedia to share them.
In 1991, Malibu was going to publish CARTOON CONFIDENTAL, the book about animation written by John Cawley and myself. I was extremely happy with my relationship with Dave Olbrich, Tom Mason and Scott Rosenberg who were running Malibu at the time. Not only were they true professionals but they had a passionate love for what they were doing that more than overcame their budget restrictions.
At the San Diego Comic Book Convention that year, I pitched several ideas to Tom that John Cawley and I had developed as well as some I had developed on my own. Since Malibu only published in black and white, I tried to create projects that would take advantage of that format. One pitch was for a three issue series entitled YOUNG WALT which would have told some inspiration Horatio Alger like stories of the early life of Walt Disney. Since it would deal in the early years before the famous trademarked Disney characters, I felt we could steer clear of possible lawsuits but still cover some of the things that inspired later Disney triumphs as well as achieving an old time movie documentary feel because it was in black and white. I pitched almost a dozen different ideas but there was one that Tom especially liked that was called THE TOONVILLE MURDERS.
Obviously we avoided using the word “Toontown” since it was so closely connected to Disney and Roger Rabbit and besides we had a different idea of how a world where cartoons and humans mixed together would be handled. The story concentrated on the old public domain black and white cartoon characters which I felt would fit in pretty well with the black and white comic book.
Two of the major human players in the story would be John Cawley and myself which I also thought was a neat idea because we were real people and not actors playing a part so it added a sense of greater reality. I also felt that this would help expand the recognition of John and I as animation historians and that the publicity might help us sell some other projects we had under development.
We would use the three issue series to pay homage to some of the great but forgotten cartoon stars of the past, parody animation art dealers/collectors, deal with questions of tolerance, provide commentary on the threat of computer animation and parallel the careers of some of the great live action silent film stars who faded when new technology took over.
A month after the San Diego convention, John and I submitted an outline and Tom wrote a detailed two page single-spaced critique of where he wanted it to go. Following all of his suggestions, we sat down and worked out the outline for a three issue limited series. John is a fox collector so we included two new fox characters (which could be merchandised of course) and I included a cute sexy young female toon because if the series had continued I would have explored what a romantic relationship between a human and a toon might actually be like along the lines of the direction being taken in television’s ALIEN NATION series.
We drove out to the Malibu offices for lunch after we had finished the final outline and got treated to a free lunch and free comics. At lunch, Tom, Dave and Scott were especially interested in the merchandising potential. We had suggested that each cover of the mini series be done with a printed painted plastic cover of a character in black and white with the actual cover being a painted background so when the two were put together it would look like a cel. In each issue would be a coupon and if the reader collected all three coupons , it could be turned in for yet another limited edition fake cel and dealers who ordered so many copies would get as a gift yet another different fake black and white cel. With all the furor of the time over animation cels and dealers marking up the price of the fake cels in the MICKEY IS SIXTY and the BUGS BUNNY birthday magazine, we thought this would catch people’s excitement to buy the comic and hopefully once they did would enjoy it. We talked about trading cards with the characters on the front and animation trivia or animation history on the back.
They suggested PVC figures and wanted to make sure that the characters we finally picked would be suitable for that type of project. We also talked about producing a video with some public domain cartoons of some of the characters that would appear in the series along with commentary by John and myself. John and I guaranteed that we could get some publicity in the animation related publications and that we would make ourselves available so we could talk about animation to radio and television shows publicizing the books since we had both had extensive media training.
We went away and started to work. Then things fell apart. Tom liked the story but worried about finding a suitable artist. John and I talked about approaching friends we knew like Scott Shaw or Dave Bennett or some other animation artist to do the work and then cut them in on the ownership. Tom started to question why Cawley and Korkis were appearing in the book since we weren’t as famous as Leonard Maltin outside the animation community. No matter how much we cut back on the Cawley and Korkis involvement in the story, we kept getting requests to feature Paul Terry, Walt Disney and Winsor McCay as the heroes. We discussed why this might result in some lawsuits and emphasized the publicity advantage and the sense of reality of having Cawley and Korkis in the book and available for appearances.
It became apparent that we were pretty low priority in the overall scheme of things as Malibu was developing other outlets including video games and possible media tie-ins, so by mutual agreement, the project was abandoned. There were no hard feelings. They had obviously worked with other creators who wanted to take projects in different directions than Malibu wanted to go. John and I had other projects including other books where we could devote our energies. Malibu in fact published another animation book by John and I about animation art collecting and I continued to write stuff for Malibu including a three issue comic book history of Sixties Rock and Roll (which was this close to publication until Marvel bought the company and decided not to publish some of the Malibu projects that had been developed).
But, by golly, I liked the TOONVILLE MURDERS and in the hopes you might like it as well. Here is one of the outlines of that comic book series that never was that featured Korkis and Cawley:
THE TOONVILLE MURDERS: BOOK ONE
Inside a dingy tenement apartment, silent toon star Dinky Doodle sits reading the obit of his toon dog who committed suicide in his water dish as the Phil Donahue show on television blares away in front of him with Gertie the Dinosaur discussing “Bisexual Toons”. The scene is intercut with film noir images of a large faucet filling up a dirty bathtub.
Debby Doodle, a twenty-something toon girl who is sexy in a wholesome way, is the niece of Dinky and is dragging a human reporter up to the apartment to interview her uncle. Entering the apartment, she screams as she sees an inky sludge floating on top of the bathtub water and spilling onto the floor.
The police arrive and squeegee up the mess and list the cause of death as “washout.” The police officer in charge who resembles Jack Webb explains to a rookie how too much real water will simply “wash” away old black and white toons. In fact, there is an underground business called “cel washing” where they assist old toons with suicide. A distraught Debby is taken off to a Silly Sidney the Elephant cartoon marathon to cheer her up.
The next day at the Toon Placement Center, human and toon employees try to find work for older toons. It is also a social center where old toons gather to play checkers, blow each other up with dynamite, argue about colorization and computerization and reminisce about the old days. All these activities are seen by two humans who look like Dave Olbrich and Tom Mason. They try to comfort Debby who works at the Center. They tell her that the market isn’t right for a comic book about her uncle and that no one would be interested in reading about him.
Foxette, a female toon who also works at the Center, brings in Korkis and Cawley to interview some of the old toons for their next book. The toons are disappointed that it is not Leonard Maltin and even though they have never heard of Korkis and Cawley, they each try to compete for the attention of the writers by recreating some of their classic routines with disastrous results since they lack the timing and flexibility they had when they were younger.
These misadventures end with the entrance of Gertie the Dinosaur and her nephew, Guenther, a sullen, black jacketed bi-ped dinosaur about the size of a small elephant. She is excited that she has an upcoming audition for a commercial about dinosaur shaped cereal and has brought samples. An angry Debby attacks Gertie, claiming the dinosaur ignored her uncle’s repeated calls to her. She is slapped across the room by Guenther and runs outside, followed by Korkis and Cawley. She tells them that if they want a real story to come with her to her uncle’s apartment.
In the alley behind them is a strangely shaped shadow and there is crackling laughter which the trio do not hear. In the apartment, human collectors are ransacking the place, taking model sheets, cels, etc. while landlord Molly Moo Cow, a toon, explains that she let them in because they paid Dinky’s back rent. Korkis and Cawley have to physically restrain Debby from tying the cow’s udder to her cowbell and they yell at everyone to get out.
They sit Debby in front of the television to watch Dan Rather on the news and calm down as they straighten up the apartment. Korkis finds a magazine shoved behind a desk with a reference to computer animation circled. Debby is puzzled because her uncle hated computer animation.
Suddenly, Rather announces the suicide of Gertie the Dinosaur, switching to a toon reporter standing in Gertie’s backyard. There is a large grey sludge floating on top of a swimming pool. An upset gardener who looks like Rodney Dangerfield tells police that he doesn’t know how real water rather than toon water got in the pool.
“It wasn’t suicide,” states Cawley to a stunned Korkis and Debby, “It was murder and I can prove it. The killer made one mistake.”
Through the open door to the apartment are seen gloved hands holding a water bucket with water dripping down the sides. Join us next time for “Water You Doing?” or “Wetting for Godot.”