He described the scene in his e-mail newsletter:  'Never in my wildest dreams did I ever believe that I would receive an ovation at the San Diego Comics Convention, much less from the likes of Will Eisner, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Sergio Aragones, and all the other wonderful comics professionals who were in attendance.  Suffice it to say, I was unable to control my emotions as I walked off the stage, and was crying openly.  I will never, ever, forget that moment.  It may very well be the pinnacle event of my entire professional career.'

Here is his acceptance speech in full:

'As I look across this room I'm just really stunned because this is not an award that I expected to get nor an award that I necessarily believe that I deserve.  I have tried very hard to work to defend the rights of everyone in this industry to read and publish and draw whatever they please, whenever they please.  And that's a freedom that my mother brought me here from Germany to enjoy.  It's a freedom which I hold very dear to my heart.  But the contribution that I've been able to make aside from simply expressing myself philosophically has been very minimal until recently when I've had the success of the Internet to buoy me up.

But even that success has only been as a consequence of the support of my family and the family of people at Mile High Comics who make me look good and who do all the work that helps provide the revenue so that I can contribute.

'We're all a community here.  We don't always agree.  We have different perspectives.  But at the same time there are members of our community that on a regular basis are attacked by those who do not share our feelings that freedom of expression is a God-given right that we should all enjoy.  At any given time over the past many years there has been someone who has been persecuted.  There have been people who have been driven to bankruptcy for selling the very comics that we all have the freedom to enjoy.  Now that I have been supported by others and I do have the wherewithal, I try very hard to support the Fund and I would hope that everyone else here would support the Fund as well.

'If you're not a member yet, it doesn't cost a lot.  If you don't have the money to join, maybe you can contribute something from your collection that can be bid on in an auction.  Or just write a letter in support.  But we've gotta defend each other because any time that one of us is being persecuted, we are all in danger of having our rights chipped away.  And there are more than enough people who are out there right now who for their own pernicious reasons believe that we should not be able to say or draw or think what we want.

'One of the things that's come up lately is the concept that patriotism involves repression.  I think that in this country -my adopted country - that patriotism, true patriotism, involves defending the rights that the people who came before us fought and died to achieve [applause].  What I think is critical and a responsibility that we all should hold dear to our hearts is that we owe it to the next generation to not leave them a world which has greater repression and less freedom than the world we were given [applause].