Edwin Aguilar Died: How Did Salvadoran Edwin Aguilar Die?

The Salvadoran Edwin Aguilar, who for more than two decades as part of the team in charge of the famous animated series The Simpsons, died this Saturday due to a cerebral thrombosis, his relatives have communicated. 

The artist was originally from El Carao canton, Intipucá municipality, in La Unión, and “at the age of 9 he left the place where he was born to come to live in the city of Los Angeles, California and where he developed the skills that led him to be part of the television show, “according to government sources.

“I am proud to say that I am Salvadoran and that I work on The Simpsons. I feel that I put my people on high because I am 100% Salvadoran , “said the national in November of last year, according to a note published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

International media assure that Aguilar, “was the first Latino to work with the legendary team Chuck Jones, creating theatrical shorts, Bugs Bunny, Looney Toons, among other classics.”

“One thing in life is that we have to learn to laugh at ourselves”

Interviewed in 2015 by the Spanish news agency EFE, Edwin Aguilar said that he entertained himself by sketching cartoons during his childhood in El Salvador. 

“When I was in El Salvador, I liked to collect the newspaper, whenever I read the newspaper I would look for Periquita or Condorito comic strips and I would trace them,” he told Efe on that date.

“This is how the passion for drawing grew,” added the assistant director of Starz Media, who in 1982 crossed the border between Mexico and the United States without documents with one of his brothers to reunite with his family in Los Angeles.

Aguilar, who was 48 years old at the time of his death, was awarded a scholarship that allowed him to study illustration at the “Art Center of Design” in Pasadena, California, and animation at the “Bridges Visual Institute” in Santa Monica.

He started as an animation assistant for “Graz Entertainment” when they produced “Transformers” and “GI-Joe”, then for Hanna-Barbera when they created episodes with “Pebbles” and “Bam-Bam”, then he sought work with Chuck Jones, creator of animated shorts such as “Merrie Melodies” and cartoon characters “Looney Tunes” for Warner Brothers.

“At the first lunch with Chuck Jones I told him that in my childhood in El Salvador I drew the rabbit Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck seeing them inside cork cans of soda bottles that he collected,” Aguilar told EFE during that interview, recalling that the anecdote It made the legendary cartoonist who passed away in 2002 laugh.

In 1998, the Fox network launched The Simpsons, created by Matt Groening, and Aguilar contacted some friends on the animation artist team to express that he wanted to take the pencil examination of the characters.

“Drawing the Simpsons is very difficult,” said Aguilar, who, thanks to his great talent, managed to obtain a contract to draw Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie, and all the members of the Simpson family.

“It is that the structure of them (the Simpsons) is very difficult, the details are very perfect then, and the thing is that they are more human than cartoons,” he said about the characters in this series that narrates life and day to day from an American middle class family.

Aguilar appreciated that, with 17 years of experience, he contributed to highlighting the Latin culture, as happened during his contribution in the episode of the 2014 Soccer World Cup in Brazil, in which Homero was a referee.

“I started to see Ronaldinho and Messi to see how they marked the ball,” said Aguilar, who explained that together with a colleague they had to study in slow motion the movements of the Brazilian and Argentine footballers.

“We consulted a lot, how he had to mark the ball, how the Chilean should do or how to do the performance of the players when they are hit with lies,” he added.

He also said that another of his contributions was to project a diverse Brazil on The Simpsons.

“Most of my colleagues who were born here believed that in Brazil there are only brown ones, in that I had to put my hand, explain the diversity to them, that Brazilian whites have roots in Portugal and the main language is not Spanish,” he clarified.

“One thing in life is that we have to learn to laugh at ourselves, to have a healthy relationship with anyone , ” he commented on the teachings he gave from the family series.