HOW WORK IS DONE AT K!

Many of our friends ask us how work is done in Ka-Boom! Studio and how the Ka-boomers work. Well... I'll tell you in a general way. Through our website, many of those who have become our clients got to know for the first time all of our work. Also, others contact us by recommendation for editorial and publicity projects. In other occasions, they get in touch with us at conventions and events, but we also go to them to offer our service portfolio.

Once the project is secure in money matters as well as in agreements with certain company, agency or publishing house, we start working. We never participate in contests since it makes us work in vain. If the client hasn't seen our work in our site or hasn't realized what he can obtain from us, we just won't give him any services. Perhaps this may seem a little arrogant, but we're tired of giving free samples of our work while they don't get to anything concrete, and the work done is not paid. We accept working with the client only when we verify that the project can become true and when the client proves to be honest and professional.
On the other hand, our achievements are due to our Commercial and Business Juridical Director's work, Carlos Villagrana, who is our representative and lawyer. He sales, defends and promotes us.

When we work on a comic, Susy is the Studio's Chief Script Director. She guides the writers in everything that has to do with scripts, concepts and the characters' psychological studies, so they can accomplish a small summary about the story in order to show it to the client so he can decide which writer will stay with the project. Sometimes, we are the ones who decide directly who will write the script since it's easier to make a decision taking the styles and tendencies into account. Of course, this is all done under my father's artistic direction.

In the artistic section, in order to choose a specific style, we participate in a small internal contest. Each artist draws from two to five sketches per theme and project, and these are sent to the client. As with the scripts, sometimes we also decide who will keep that project or all of the samples the client had chosen.

Since we all love each other's work, there is no envy nor professional jealousy amongst us. Though the client chooses one specific writer or artist in several continued occasions, we all feel happy for that person because, as a group, a well done work means prestige for all of us, and we all get economically and emotionally benefited. Many have left our team precisely because of their envy, and they didn't understand that team work is better. In fact, due to the production schedules, we all have to participate in a project.

For example, several months ago, Reader's Digest hired us to draw some illustrations for them. The truth is that we didn't work for magazines due to the low prices, but by negotiating with them, now they ask us frequently to do artwork for them. Horacio, Mariana, Alex, Mau and me draw several character proposals. In this occasion, they asked us an illustration for a medical article, and today we handed them in. The following images are some of those illustrations...

The chosen ones, were Alex's and Horacio's.
For those who who still don't know, all of the illustrations that are not used are stored in our respective Gallery and Sketchbook sections of our website, and all that is published, when the client authorizes it, are uploaded to each one's trajectory sections. Now, as artists, we all wish to fulfill ourselves through our work, this motivates us to compete fairly but without the desire of winning just because of it. Besides, we all have and work alternatively our own projects, which balances our way of working.

We are all owners of Ka-Boom! and although I am the General Director, all the Argonauts are part of the company and not simple collaborators, because they've been alert and present since we started working as a group, because of that, in spite of the "failures", they all fight in ¡Ka-Boom's! favor as a priority and investment; because we know that is better to create a company of one's own than end working in solitaire as a coworker or employee and with the uncertainty of a future where one could lose their job at any moment. As a group, and as a company, the clients trust even more in the results because everything is a unity and prefer to have the services from one source than risk themselves hiring an illustrator or a writer.

Of course, there's also the other side of the coin, because many Publishers prefer not to deal with Artistic Studios, because it is harder to exploit the artist, because he's not alone. And, in the case of the rookies, it is even worst still since the negotiation rank is very reduced.
We are like the Indian nations, all the involved ones go to celebrate the deal with the white man, we go like this to the meetings since we all must know about the agreements and have an opinion according to their knowledge, we are all ¡Ka-Boom! and we decide between all. In the beginning clients didn't know what to think, but little by little we have proven the integral solutions that ¡Ka-Boom! offers them. They only had a trio of chairs before, now they select the boardroom 'cause they expect a minimum of 5 negotiators.

Now, like a sort of cooperative, being this so delicate, we are no longer accepting anyone outside of the Studio's circle, because of bad experiences we prefer that the cake slices are taken the ones that have been faithful, ethical and professional for a long time; and of course, we open the Studio's door to new members, but only after making them go through everything that a real pro should go through, and of course, the ones who don't surpass the tests, speak curses to us, which is really not important since the truly valuable for us is that many people do trust and believe in what we do, as entrepreneurs as the general audience.