15
comic book called
The Intertidal Zone
.The comic featured various forms
of sea life, which he used to teach his students about the animal life in
tidal pools.The comic starred sea creatures with human characteristics
and featured Bob the Sponge as the cohost of the comic. He looked like
an actual sea sponge and talked about sea life. Some of the other charac-
ters included a sea star and a shore crab. Many of the characters in this
comic would develop later into characters on
SpongeBob SquarePants
.
Hillenburg approached several publishers to see if they were in-
terested in professionally publishing the comic, but none accepted his
work for publication. “I made this comic and I sent it out—and peo-
ple liked it, but they didn’t see how it would be a published item—you
know, where they could make money from it. So I shelved the whole
thing,”
12
he says.
Following Artistic Dreams
Even though he did not sell his comic, the experience of creating the
animated book helped Hillenburg realize that he wanted to pursue
While working at a Southern California marine institute, Hillenburg sometimes
dressed up as a sailor who worked on the 1830s-era tall ship
Pilgrim
(pictured
during a 2011 festival). Part of his job included teaching sea shanties to children.
