The fact of taking part as an artist on the comic of one of the most famous animated series of all times, "The Simpsons", has given me, and all of the Ka-boomers lots of satisfactions.
The first one was assisting to the Will Eisner Award ceremony for the best of american comic at the San Diego Comic Con. That year was very important for me because I won this coveted award for my participation in the special edition of Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror #5 along with Sergio Aragones, Jill Thompson, Steve Streere Jr., Scott Shaw! and Doug TeNapel.
The ceremony was very emotive, and Will Eisner himself congratulated me for the award because He knew my work since 1987. On the other hand, Sergio Aragonés was very proud and happy due to the fact, as many already know, that he helped me enter the world of american comic since the late 80's.
I felt a great excitement when I walked to the front to receive the award, and I saw many of my idols applauding and congratulating me for it. The truth is that it was an experience that will stay deep in my heart because it was an honor and a privilege to be next to such great comic personalities that night.
The second satisfaction is the fact that Horacio Sandoval (who later on also collaborated with "The Simpsons" ) and I were called to the Bongo Comics' stand to autograph and draw some character sketches of the yellow family for the fans. It was a great experience to alternate with other Simpsons artists and specially with Bill Morrison, who literally was our immediate chief.
Two of our greatest anecdotes were that two of our idols approached to Horacio and me and asked us for our autographs and sketches, actually, when we saw them, we were the ones who asked them for their autographs. We exchanged signatures. As I am a Star Trek fan, I got really excited when Will Wheaton told me he was a fan of my artwork on The Simpsons.
Horacio, on the other hand, almost fainted when Gene Simmons from KISS asked him a sketch of Bart, just look at his face! Excuse him! It's just that he grew up along with this Rock group, and that experience meant a lot to him, as for me was to meet an actor involved in that Sci-Fi series that changed my childhood.
The third satisfaction was that at the conference that all of the Bongo Comics Staff gave at the Comic Con 2001, Ka-Boom! Studio was introduced. Humorously, Terry Delegane said that the people at Bongo were the american Ka-boomers because the way we act was very similar to theirs: in spite of being a publishing company, they were all very united as one big family and they always helped each other.
Also, in two occasions (2000/2001), the Ka-boomers were invited to the Bongo Comics Group headquarters at Hollywood, California.
Matt Groening, Terry Delegane, Bill Morrison, Nathan Kane, Art Villanueva and the rest of the staff that make the Simpsons' comics and animation kindly attended us, and we spent a great time with them. Matt himself gave us a tour, guided us and introduced to us all of the company departments. He also showed us all of the top secret merchandise which was just to be released. It was an enriching experience that none of the Ka-boomers will ever forget.
As a finishing golden touch, Matt gave each of the Ka-boomers some phosphorescent toys of Bender from Futurama and a set from this series, which still wasn't on sale at the moment.
Yes..there's no doubt about it, "The Simpsons" are a very important part of our lives as proffesional artists of the comic industry.
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