For the first time since 2009, the Inkwell Awards public ballot will incorporate a change in a category. The Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame Award will now be handled internally by the separate HoF Nomination Committee (HoFNC) all the way through instead of having the public make the final two choices from the tallied nominees.
*ITEM! Ink artist Phil Moy posted this file on our Facebook group page which shows a giant Ms. Inkwell illustration that he donated to our upcoming Ms. Inkwell Gallery book used on the promotional screens above Artists Alley at San Diego Comic-Con. Thanks to Phil for giving Ms. India Wells some west coast cred while plugging himself.
*ITEM! Check out our spankin’ new FAQ page to answer all of those pesky inquiries you’ve been wondering about all this time. And reading our updated History page can’t hurt!
*ITEM! Congratulations to Inkwell Awards committee member Michael W. Kellar for his promotion to the position of Assistant Director starting this month of August. This will mean that Mike will help me add some much-coveted order to my present load of chaos. Wish us luck!
*ITEM! Speaking of the Ms. Inkwell Gallery book, that was intended for a summer release, it’s now scheduled for a late fall release. But we have some big surprises in store for it that we’ll be sure to announce soon!
*ITEM! And speaking of books, our 2012 Donation book that debuted at Heroes Con is now available at our Store for a donation of $15. And within a week we’ll be able to take orders for our Special Signed & Numbered (limited to only ten copies) Edition signed by cover artist Mike McKone and signed by producers Jim Tournas and Bob Almond on the title page inside.
<Note: this was the original material from my first edited draft regarding this year’s Special Recognition Awards that would up in a much-abbreviated form for the live ceremony speech at Heroes Con June 23 on Saturday 12:30-2:00 for the sake of brevity. All three Inkwell award recipients received their silver inkwell trophy following the ceremony.>
– with apologies to Charles Dickens –
(Or “Website Inkwell: The Origin and Travel Guide”)
Almost exactly four years in the making.
When founding committee member Jim Tournas constructed our site within our first month of creation in January 2008 we were ecstatic and all eager to turn it into THE one-stop inking resource site on the web. We had Inker-centric News, an Inker Links page to tutorials and interviews, an About page with core committee, contributors and ambassadors info listed, my blog, a Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame page and some sections that would eventually fade into limbo such as the Advertisers info page, a Press page with our announcements, a Friends page, A Conventions/Photos page and a Links page. Another committee founding member Daniel Best who acted as webhost (along with our first contributor Tim Aslat) took over the site maintenance soon after Jimmy. Besides doing updates and polishing up the venue to create a cohesive, consistent-looking site, we eventually added a Results page, new HoF pages, Art Supplies links, Inker Samples, and after his passing in June 2009 a Dave Simons Scholarship page. I even got our first comprehensive and exclusive Inkers Database launched with Danny’s help. Like it does today, the homepage ran news, a definition of the craft of inking, social networks links on the web, supporters banner ads, and, until recently, upcoming convention events. Some of these additions were my ideas, some were those of our associates, and some were in response to our online annual ballot poll which asked “what would you like to see more of at our website?” (I believe the number one answer was nekkid girls <g>….number two was for more graphics). We were expanding and the site was something to be proud of. Until Danny eventually found it more problematic to keep up with it and updates began to get less timely. It was time for a new maintenance contributor to take over and keep us fresh and current. Thus ended the honeymoon period.
Sorry about the reference but I’m such a pathetic Avengers geek.
We’ve had a lot of accomplishments this past year but none so much as our membership roster. For Contributors we added Erick Korpi, Phil Healy and Henry Covert. For Ambassadors we added Cully Hamner, J. David Spurlock, Phil Jimenez, Eric Basuldua and Joe freakin’ Kubert
As mentioned in my blog entry “What’s in a Name?”, I discussed two unsung heroes in the Inkwell Awards world, Serge LaPointe and P.J. Magalhaes. This time around I wanted to give thanks (which is perfect just before Thanksgiving for us Americans) to two more.
While inking a short 4-issue run on Marvel’s Heroes for Hire recently I added a familiar logo to a store sign in the background. This was in the Spider-Island: HFH one-shot (Oct. ’11), page 12, panel one, with pencil art by Kyle Hotz, inks by myself (and background ink assistance by Enrique (Zeke) Savory, Jr.).
Let’s hope our earth fares better in 2012 than the earth from Metamorphosis Odyssey anyway! But, as a matter of fact, over the summer I honestly had personal feelings that the Inkwell Awards as an ongoing operation was doomed to destruction….even after accomplishing so much in a successful fourth season! My work scheduled picked up starting in the spring and I was barely able to carry operations through to the Heroes Con awards ceremony in June. And I wasn’t sure when it would let up.
Due to personal and private matters some on the committee went on sabbaticals early in 2011 and I found myself alone to handle various functions. Should the spigot of inking gigs keep pouring into late 2011, I had my doubts about running things in any way, and in my opinion on one on the team had the availability and/or know-how to run things as interim director in my absence.
Bob Shaw had retired, taking his wife and contributor Kim with him. Nathan Massengill grew more and more out of communication until be totally disappeared in the fall. My fellow founders Danny Best and Jimmy Tournas were side-tracked over the summer with other matters in their lives. Our upgraded wordpress website was out of date and missing resources from the original site, with no one capable or available to handle it. And we’d been having some account issues with our primary fundraising source eBay and our budgetary funds were running out. Wouldn’t you panic?
Kudos to two unsung inker heroes (I apologize in advance for any lapses of correct memory details):
When I first started discussing the idea of the Inkwell Awards in late 2007 on the Yahoo mailing list group The Inkwell, I was calling it the Inkblot Awards. It made perfect sense to me as it was my concept and my column in Sketch Magazine#35 where I wrote an article on it was called ‘Inkblots’. No one voiced any criticism with it as I recall, until Canadian-based inker Serge Lapointe spoke up and asked “Why not the InkWELL Awards?” He said it sounded better. I hated it. Until some time passed and reason caught up with me and I realized that he was right, it was perfect (well, now more perfect that Inkblots anyway– Inkwell=classy, Inkblots=uh, messy?). My personal website was ‘The Bob Almond Inkwell’ so that was a nice reference to me as originator and, more noticeably, the online venue where the concept began to mold and transform was on, in fact, The Inkwell! So the name stuck from there. I would subsequently add the Yahoo group’s owner and moderator Jim Tournas and my Sketch editor Bill Nichols to the founding Inkwell core committee in January of 2008.
Thanks, Serge!
As we slowly get our revamped site up to ‘speed’, I have some personal loose-ends to catch up on. And since I have my own blog ‘Bob’s Corner’, I might as well use it when I can, and not just as an intro to each new season (although that post will be forthcoming before long <g>). Earlier this year I checked out a copy of writer/photographer/marketer/& ‘Jedi’ Buddy Scalera’s new book CREATING COMICS FROM START TO FINISH (released last spring) and overall found the book to be well composed with chapters on various aspects of comic book production from editing, writing, penciling, inking, lettering and coloring, as well as a chapter on alternate jobs in the industry, interviews with Joe Quesada and Stan Lee, and several addendum chapters with notes and resources for reference. Among the notable creators involved with their related chapters are Mike Marts, Mark Waid, Darick Robertson, Chris Eliopoulos, Brian Haberlin, and for inking, Rodney Ramos. I was pleased to see a 12-page chapter on inking, allowing me to write a brief review on that section as that happens to be a matter ON TOPIC here at the Inkwell Awards site. Rodney has had over two decades in the biz as an ink artist and he’s got an impressive reputation so Buddy made a superb choice with him.