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I barely knew the man and legend. But I do know that, to my shock, he accepted my invitation to be an ambassador for my Inkwell Awards last year and to be associated with us (much thanks goes to J. David Spurlock for the nudge).  This lent us a huge amount of credibility and exposure as he was debatably (although I doubt anyone would debate it) our top creator to represent us, which says an awful LOT considering our other brilliant ambassadors and their talent & reps).  And he personally handed out three Dave Simons Inkwell Memorial Scholarship Fund Awards to his students for us at the school that bears his name, a school that represented the sequential art field like no other. He was so active, strong and busy that I figured he’d surely be around for some time to come. Starting professionally at the age of TWELVE, he was one of the final surviving innovators of the golden-age of comics and one who helped to develop our sequential art form as a teacher and mentor for decades. Honestly, it’s more of a loss to this industry and community than I can even properly express.

I sincerely extend all of my best wishes to his family and loved ones on behalf of the Inkwell Awards family.  May he rest and peace. Thanks a lot, Joe!    ~B~

(From Bob Almond’s posts on Facebook today):

STOLEN! Got back parcels of our Inkwell Awards materials following Heroes Con from the USPS and one box was empty although it had the stamp for $13.44 and had been resealed. Problem is we didn’t insure the box so I could only get the postage reimbursed and place a report with the inspector general. Stolen items include the final three out of the five limited and numbered Joe Sinnott Inking Challenge editions (signed by Joe, Terry Austin, Daniel Best and myself), (6?) copies of the Joe Sinnott signed & numbered editions of the book, several regular edition copies, regular editions of our Donation Books from 2010 (Randy Green cover), 2010 (Craig Rousseau cover), and 2011 (Louis Small cover) including almost half of the signed and numbered copies of the Craig Rousseau 2011 edition, the 2010 (Rousseau cover) multi-signed edition (Craig Rousseau, Bob Almond, Enrique Savory, Jr., Sara Richard, Brian Kong, Jim Tournas, Joe Sinnott, Mike McKone, Nicole Hansche, Ethan Van Sciver and Joe Haley), and the last three Joe Sinnott signed 2010 blank variant printer defect editions. Other stolen items in that box were a couple of Vanguard Pruductions books donated by J David Spurlock like Irwin Hasen: Loverboy and The Edge signed by Bill Sienkiewicz.  Probably more…as they come to me.

This may not seem like much but we’re still a small non-profit with a meager budget at best so this hit after so many recent financial losses are crippling to the organization. I won’t hold my breath but hoping for a miracle. Please contact Bob at dmralmond@gmail.com
Developing….

(L-R) Haley Greenleaf as the hostess Ms. Inkwell, Bob McLeod as Keynote Guest Speaker and Bob Almond as the ceremony host

Columnist/reporter Michael Dunne of First Comics News has reported on one challenge highlight of Bob Almond’s ceremony speech at the 2012 Heroes Con Inkwell Awards award ceremony from June 23. That message was the following:

“And by the way, while I don’t want to be ‘that guy’ who presumes to know better and tell others how to do their job better, with all due respect intended, speaking on behalf of the ink artists of our community, I’d like to put out a request to the prestigious Eisner Awards, our industry’s comparable Academy Awards: would you please consider returning the Best Inker category to your annual ballot, please? By removing it, for reasons of supposed lack of clarity of what it is we do, you do us a disservice and disrespect combining us to a category titled “Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team” which removes the distinction of our specialty and comes across like we’re unworthy of a category. Can we get enough grass root support from our community to actually effect change for the better? Perhaps we can work with them on this…I’m certainly offering.”

For the full video of the awards ceremony in it’s entirety please check back to this site as it will be posted here in the near future.