Back in the mid-90s, Phil Hester and I pitched a Gorilla City four issue mini-series. We developed an idea that incorporated elements from the Carmine Infantino Flash and some bizzaro Kirby stuff while introducing new elements of the City’s past and present.

This was actually our second pitch together. The first, a Creature Commandos story looked good to go but then our editor collapsed with a brain tumor (seriously). His successor wasn’t as interested. The third was a millennium-centric Doctor Occult tale co-starring The Demon and Golden Age Green Lantern that failed to materialize.

Things were looking good on the Gorilla City front, the editor loved the proposal. Then someone in marketing decided that modern readers were NOT interested in apes! And it was dead.

Course a few years later, I guess someone there wised-up, because DC produced their JL-Ape series that ran over their 1999 annuals. (Neither of us were involved with the project) This coming October, DC is offering a best of apes reprint collection.

And on top of that, this is coming out from Marvel in September.

Quote:

MARVEL APES #1 & 2 (of 4) Written by KARL KESEL Pencils by RAMON BACHS Cover by JOHN WATSON Variant Cover For Marvel Apes #1 by RAMON BACHS Variant Cover For Marvel Apes #2 by PHIL JIMENEZ Flingin’ feces, True Believer– the entire Marvel Universe has gone APE! Just when he thinks life can’t get any worse or weirder, Marty Blank – a.k.a. that lovable loser, the Gibbon — finds himself and the brilliant-and-beautiful Dr. Fiona Fitzhugh transported to a world where monkeys rule and humans don’t exist! SEE the spectacular simian city of Monkhattan! MEET the hominoid heroes and villains – SPIDER-MONKEY! DOC OOK! IRON MANDRILL! SIMIAN TORCH! THE APE-VENGERS! And more! THRILL to the return of Speedball! CONTAINS No-Ads, as we are thrilled to present you backup tales exploring the Apeiverse! LEARN the dark secret of the primate planet! WORRY that the fate of the entire universe is in the hands of the Gibbon! Not a hoax, not a dream, not an imaginary story – just the most not-to-be-missed mini-series of the season! If you only buy one (well, two) comics this month about super-powered, intelligent apes-in-capes, it must be MARVEL APES!

I’ll be curious how this goes. Marvel doesn’t have quite the ape history of DC.

It appears that Phil and I, by looking backward, were actually ahead of the curve!

Though we remain friends, Phil’s never actually illustrated a story of mine. I did have the pleasure of editing several Hester stories while with Mojo Press.