Starting with submissions to his high school paper, Bill Meddick has been a cartoonist all of his life. He continued to successfully offer his cartoon work to his university newspaper at Washington University in St. Louis, MO, where he was a student of illustration. His work appeared twice weekly, enabling to develop an audience for his initial efforts. Bill's first comics include "Temporary Insanity," "Paperback Writer" and, while taking a course in Roman history, "Toga."
While on a visit to the student newspaper group at Washington University, Mike Peters - cartoonist of "Mother Goose and Grimm" - saw Bill's work in the school newspaper. He recommended that the newspaper staff tell Bill to send him his cartoons and that he would forward them on to his syndicate. Bill took up Mike Peters' offer but rejections were the response. Entering a cartooning contest by Tribune Media Services, Bill was chosen as one of 10 winners. As the prize, the group was flown to New York for presentations with the syndicate and a talk with cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, creator of "Shoe."
Bill received an offer by United Features Syndicate to put his strip Paperback Writer into development. The promising cartoonist made the bold decision to refuse. He did not like giving up rights to his creation if the syndicate chose to publish it after the six month development period was up. And there was no offer of money for his efforts. Bill was confident that other syndicates would eventually show interest in his comic strips.
A short time later, United Features contacted Bill about another development contract. This offer included a small income to create a strip entitled Robotman that would be aimed at young children. It was a cartoon geared to merchandise a licensed toy developed by a record producer. (Earlier, Bill Watterson, creator of "Calvin and Hobbes," had been asked to take on the task and declined.) Bill Meddick accepted the offer, thinking the idea would never fly. He had been told that similar themes were overdone and would not sell. To boost his income, he also accepted a job on-staff doing cartoon corrections by paste-up and spot illustrations.
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