Bill Morrison is and has been someone important in the world of The Simpsons and Futurama. He has been working for The Simpsons as an ilustrator or doing similar tasks since 1990. Besides, he also was art director of Futurama and he's the editor and creative director of Bongo Comics Group since 1993.
Bill himself explains the details and gives us some important information from the backstage of Bongo:

1- Tell us something about the pre-Simpsons Bill Morrison. How did you become interested in the drawing industry? Where did you study? Where did you work before The Simpsons?
I have been drawing since I was about three years old and became obsessed with comics at age seven when I came down with Batmania. As a teenager, I wanted to be a comic book artist, but decided to go into illustration to avoid having to live in New York City where all the publishers used to be. (I love N.Y. now, by the way) I studied at The Center for Creative Studies (now known as The College for Creative Studies) in Detroit Michigan for four years and graduated with a certificate in Illustration. Then I worked as a technical illustrator (it was Detroit, after all) for two years before coming to California and getting a job in the movie advertising business. I worked for B.D. Fox and Friends in Hollywood and did everything from rough concept sketches to finished illustrations for movie posters and even some photo retouching. I actually met Matt Groening there. He used to write advertising copy for some of the posters I worked on. After about four years there, I took a job at a studio that produced illustrations for various purposes (billboards, magazine ads, album covers, etc.), including some movie poster work. Because of my interest in cartooning, I ended up painting posters for lots of animated films, including Disney's The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, Bambi, Lady and The Tramp, etc., and Lucas and Spielberg's The Land Before Time.

2- What was your first Simpsons job? Any interesting/funny anecdote?
The first Simpsons job was in 1990. It was a drawing of Bart playing bongos (How ironic, considering my current job!) for general styleguide use, I believe. I saw it used on several merchandise items including paper party plates. There was also a drawing of the Simpsons family in a kick line that I did at the same time, as I recall. The only thing funny about the job is how incredibly bad my drawing was. Of course, back then the characters were still fairly close to the "Tracy Ullman" models, so in context they may not have seemed so horrible. Apparently they were good enough to keep Fox coming back to me with more assignments. In fact, they offered me a job in November of that year and I worked in their licensing department for a few years, drawing most of the images that appeared on the early Simpsons merchandise.

3- Since 1993 you have been editor and creative director of Bongo Comics Group. What are the origins of Bongo? Has Fox anything to do with it?
No, Bongo was founded by Matt Groening, along with Steve and Cindy Vance and myself. We were all working on The Simpsons Illustrated magazine and a comic section was part of the mag. We ended up doing a special all comics annual called Simpson Comics and Stories and it sold extremely well. Matt decided the world was ready for a regular line of Simpsons Comics, and thus Bongo was born! Matt owns the publishing rights to both The Simpsons and Futurama, so the stuff we do (not only the comics, but also the books and calendars) is the only Simpsons and Futurama merchandise that doesn't have to go through Fox for approval. Matt has the final say over what we do.

4- What’s your main/general goal in Bongo?
My personal goal is to make the experience of reading the comics as close to watching an episode as possible, within the medium of comics. The problem with that is that the show is so good and has the benefit of sound, animation, music, brilliant voice acting, etc. we're inevitably going to be judged as inferior. Still, I think we do damn good comics and some day they'll be judged based on how good they are as comics, not whether they do a good job of imitating a TV show.

5- Bongo doesn’t make only comics, right? What other stuff do you do?
As I hinted at, we do the Simpsons and Futurama calendars every year, including The Simpsons page-a-day trivia calendar. We do the books, like The Bart Book, The Homer Book, (check out the two latest in the Library of Wisdom series, The Ralph Wiggum Book, and Comic Book Guy's Book of Pop Culture!) The episode guides, The Visitor's Guide to Springfield, etc.

6- Tell us about the process of creating a Simpsons/Futurama/etc. Comic. How many people are in the staff of Bongo? How much time passes between the first idea and the finished comic?
We have a staff of about a dozen people, but we also work with lots of freelancers, including artists from the TV shows.

Basically, writers pitch me ideas and I approve, disapprove, give notes. Then I get an outline and give more notes. Next comes a first draft script with more notes from me. After the script is approved, it goes to art director Nathan Kane and he assigns it to a penciller. Rough layouts are done and Nathan gives the artist notes. When the tight pencils are done and approved, Nathan sends them to an inker. The inks are scanned in-house and usually colored and lettered by staffers at Bongo. Nathan and managing editor Terry Delegeane read the final stories over and come to me with any problems they see. Then it goes to the printer, I spot last minute mistakes, and am told that it's too late to change them. The covers are usually generated completely in-house. I draw most of them, but sometimes Nathan dreams up an idea and gives it to staffers Mike Rote or Jason Ho to pencil and ink.

Several months usually pass between the initial pitch and the finished comic, just like the TV shows.

7- Is it pleasant to write and draw Simpsons Comics? I mean, there has to be a lot of pressure… they’re so famous and their fans are so demanding…
Yes, but we tend to ignore you. Ha! Just kidding. Yes, we are the custodians of iconic cultural characters. It's not something we take lightly, even though to those who don't like our comics it may seem that way. But it's also a ton of fun, as you might imagine.

8- There has been a number of episodes with a plot (or idea, at least) similar to the plot of a comic that was done before. How do you feel about it? Do you have any contact with the staff of the TV show?
Good question. We have had several weird co-inky-dinks in that area. Believe it or not, they were all unintentional. Some of our stories came out before the similar TV episode aired, and some came after. (I think our story in Simpsons Comics #50 about the town of Springfield being divided by a wall came out the same week that the "A Tale of Two Springfields" episode aired. A deafening "D'oh!" was heard from my house that night.) In each case it was just ignorance on our part as to what the show writers were working on. We've since started asking for their plot lines in advance so we can avoid such embarrassing incidents.

9- How do continuity and character changes in the Simpsons TV show, such as Maude’s death and Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure’s retirements, affect your work?
We try to keep up on the continuity if possible. We eventually made Ned a widower in the comics, but when the death of Maude occurred on the show, we already had several scripts that featured Maude in the works. It just took us a while to get with the program. The one thing I've always refused to do in the comics is to make Barney sober. As awful as it sounds, I just feel that it makes him a dull character so I've told our writers and artists to keep him the lovable town drunk. It appears that my rebellious decision has been vindicated, as I see Barney has been falling off the wagon on the show in the past few years.

10-You were also art director of Futurama (the TV show). What did you do there, more exactly?
I helped Matt design the original cast before he pitched it to Fox. Then, when the show was in production I was brought on to do more designs. I worked directly for Curiosity Company, not Rough Draft, so "Art director" was the title they gave me that stepped on the least amount of toes at R.D. where they already had several brilliant character designers. However, I ended up doing lots of actual art direction when producer Mili Smythe went on maternity leave. Then it was my job to review all designs and give the artists notes before sending them on to Matt and David Cohen for final approval.

11-According to various rumours and Matt Groening’s and Billy West’s words, Futurama may come back in form of DVD movie/s. Do you know something about it? Is there hope for a comeback of the TV show? Is there a real reason behind Futurama’s cancellation?
It's definitely in the works, though I'm not sure if they've actually inked the deal yet. If they do the DVDs and they are successful (buy multiples!!), I think the show has a real shot for a comeback. Everyone who worked on it is anxious to see this happen. It was a great experience, and one we'd like to repeat.
Basically, Futurama was cancelled because there was nobody at Fox at the time who cared enough about it to give it the proper time slot. Things have since changed, and the people who exist there now are quite fond of it, I'm told.

12-The former writer of Futurama and current head of the Writers Guild Of America Patric M. Verrone has written three issues of Futurama Comics (#11, 14 and 20). How did you add him to the staff? Will he write more comics?
I knew Patric from working on the show. He had some stories that never had the chance to become episodes, so I invited him to write them for the comic series. "Bender Breaks Out" was obviously written especially for the comics, but I believe the other stories were ideas that he pitched while on the show. Patric has a real knack for groundbreaking storytelling devices (the issue that could be read six different ways for example)and I think he relished the chance to bring his ideas to the comics. He's pretty busy now, but he knows he's got an open door to write for us whenever he has the time.

13-About neither-Simpsons-nor-Futurama comics that Bongo has released, how did you decide to publish “Roswell: Little Green Man” and “Heroes Anonymous”? Were there any other side projects that didn’t get published? Are any side projects being released in the future?
Matt gave me an invitation to do my own comics at Bongo and I came up with Roswell, Little Green Man. I pitched it to Matt and the decision was his to publish it. Same with Heroes Anonymous, which I co-created with my then-assistant Scott M. Gimple. The only other series that didn't get published that I can think of is Paul Dini's Emu and Thylacine. There were contract problems that kept it from getting on the schedule, but Paul and I have picked it up again and are working on it.

14-How’s the experience of working with outside-Bongo artists in the Halloween special comics “Bart Simpson’s Treehouse Of Horror”?
Terrific! Treehouse gives us the opportunity to work with some of out favorite writers and artists. It's always a blast to see what they come up with. Matt loves seeing his characters rendered in different styles and that gives us the freedom to really go way out with the people we invite. Issue #11 is on sale now!! (Sorry, that was shameless.)

15-Will you continue making Simpsons Comics after The Simpsons TV show ends? Or is it something you haven’t even talked about yet?
Sure! As long as sales are good, there's no reason to stop. But it's weird to think that when that happens, we'll be the only source for new Simpsons stories (besides the string of hit movies!). Talk about pressure! Maybe we'll be able to hire some of the out-of-work writers!

16-What about The Simpsons/Futurama crossovers? What were the most difficult aspects you had to face while doing them? How successful have the crossovers been? The second crossover was very, very open-ended, does that mean there will there be a third one?
The hardest thing was convincing Matt that it would work, given his parameters. Matt contends that The Simpsons is fictional and Futurama is actually our world a thousand years from now. The Simpsons exists in Futurama as a TV show that's been running for over a thousand years. Therefore he was against the idea of a crossover because the two worlds don't co-exist. However, Ian Boothby came up with a brilliant idea.Utilizing the brain spawn characters from Futurama, he pitched me the idea that the characters could interact if the spawn used their powers to zap the Planet Express crew into a Simpsons comic book. I in turn pitched the idea to Matt and he agreed that it could work!

There may be a third one, but first there will be a collection of the first two series, plus "Hail to the Cat", the story that the characters are actually zapped into in the first series. Plus, we've added the all-new story "Chili Chili Bang Bang" that is shown in the second crossover. There may also be an incredible pull-out poster.

17-Playmates Toys, which did a lot of Simpsons toys during the last years, did a “Bongo Comics” pack in 2002 with Homer, Edna and Apu exactly as they appeared in that myth of Simpsons Comics called “When Bongos Collide!”. How involved were you with this? I read there were more Bongo toys planned by Playmates, but they were cancelled because of the low sales of the first pack. Is that true? What characters were going to be in following packs?
Well, not exactly. I was involved in the approval process for the sculpts and there were indeed more to come. I did approvals for a total of nine sculpts. I recall Black Belch, The Entangler, Brain Baby, The Jazzler... The series was cancelled by Gracie Films before the first set even hit the store shelves. They objected to the fact that the characters had not appeared on the TV show like the rest of the W.O.S. figures.

18-How do you feel now, 15 years after the creation of “Bongo”? Did you think back in 1993 that this would be a 3 lustrum (and counting) job?
Because of the popularity of the show, I guess I assumed that it would go for several years, but back then we never dreamed that the show would even last for seventeen seasons. I'm still passionate about Bongo and want to do whatever I can to keep it growing and thriving.

19-The typical last question: What do you see in the future of Bongo Comics? Are you working on any new project?
I want to do more and better comics and books and keep growing and improving with each one we do. I can envision a time when we will be publishing not only The Simpsons and Futurama, but other humor books like Roswell and also lines of comics and books in other genres like horror, super hero, adventure, crime drama, romance, etc. - - all the genres you find in movies.
I'm currently working on a new Roswell series, another futuristic humor book, and a horror/crime drama. Whether they get published by Bongo is up in the air, but I'd love to see these books become the cornerstones of a huge Bongo expansion.

Thanks a lot to Bill Morrison for spending some of his time answering these questions. Best wishes to you and Bongo.