Ricardo Martinez Ortega, born: 1956 Santiago, Chile of Spanish immigrant Parents. He moved to Spain (Madrid) with his family in May 1969. Ricardo began his professional career towards the end of the seventies. Soon he was creating illustrations for publications, advertising agencies, and comic books. In 1981 he moved to Miami, where he worked at an ad agency, conceptualizing ads for Seven Up , Dr.Pepper, and American Express, and movie posters. Shortly thereafter, he was hired for a staff position at the “The Miami News” as a designer/illustrator/graphic artist. After six years, the paper was sold to Knight Ridder, and Ricardo went on to be the Op/Ed illustrator for the Miami Herald. While in Miami, Ricardo and his childhood friend Nacho created “Goomer”. This comic strip has been continuously published since 1987.
Ricardo has won many awards, 8 gold and a “Judge’s Special Recognition” from the Society of Newspaper Design, for his illustrations on the Sunday Op/Ed pages that he did for The Miami Herald and El Mundo. He also received the International Press Award given to him by Kofi Annan, the prestigious Madrid Premio Tono awarded to him by the Mayor of Madrid, The Haxtur Award in GijĆ³n, Spain Comic Festival, the āGat Perichā given by the editors of newspapers in Barcelona. His works have appeared in the Annual collections of The Society of Illustrators in New York, and in several collected works.
