UPDATED 4/3/10

Look out 2010, the Inkwells are BACK!

We're back for 2010, BIGGER and BETTER than ever, baby!! Typical hyperbole? In many cases, the answer would be yes but not so this time here at Inkwell headquarters, dear friends. The most significant development to date was made in a recent announcement that Wizard Entertainment will be supporting our mission through promotion, space at their shows, and in sponsoring our first live awards presentation at the premiere of their New England Comic Con in Boston on October 1-3, 2010 . We'd hesitated until now from doing anything more than online result announcements in the past because we were wide-eyed rookies at the awards game, our fan base was still developing, and we had a limited budget (and still do!).  The Wizard show will bring in additional attendees not familiar with our non-profit charity organization to assist in exposure and fundraising. And they are being generous enough to fly in and accommodate all award recipients this fall.  The only change from last year's plans would be that instead of voting taking place in the month on June, it would take place in the month of August where ballots will be found here at the site homepage.  Still a definite win-win in our eyes!

But we're not resting on our laurels because we have two additional months added to the season, no-siree.  Debuting at Pittsburgh Comicon on April 23-25 will be our new spokesmodel Ms. Inkwell, for her first appearance she'll be brought to life by model Chrissy Cutler! Designed and rendered by the uber-talented Randy Green from my original concept, the character will be our organization's mascot and she'll animated by models at specific show venues as listed on our Appearances page and the soon to be produced Ms. Inkwell page on our site which will showcase the creators, the models and the character herself.  With or without our beloved Ms. I, our convention schedule has been amped up like mad this year!

And operations are still running like clockwork around here.  Our Nomination Committee's (revealed on our Friends page) nomination votes for the artists and material from 2009 are already submitted and need to be tallied and validated for the upcoming public ballot.  The Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame award nominees are also finalized for the same ballot.   New, snazzy brochures and our latest 2010 Donation fundraising books are available for the convention season, our next fundraising auctions have resumed as of late March on eBay, and over the fall/winter we added Twitter to our already prolific social networks line-up, added an Inking Samples section to the site to drive home visually what ink artists bring to the table, recruited artist Ethan Van Sciver to join our present Ambassadors, and installed the internet's first exclusive and comprehensive Inker Database at our one-stop inker resource center inkwellawards.com.  And coming soon, our annual Round Table Interview, the first recipient of the Dave Simons Inkwell Memorial Scholarship Fund at the Kubert School announcement, and many other surprises!  Again, not typical hyperbole! 

But through it all, our mission is the same: To INFORM the community about the comic book craft of inking and to RECOGNIZE it's ink artists, all for the celebration and advancement of quality ink art. This is due to the misunderstood nature of our craft and the artists who often fall under the radar. We don't want special attention or treatment, simply credit where credit's traditionally been due. And we sincerely want to certify no intended malice or agenda against any editors or publishers. We are here to educate and appreciate in a constructive, inspirational manner.

For more about our origins and my thoughts, you can browse down to last year's message from me below this one.  All you need to know for this year is to bookmark our site, come back on August first to see the ballot ink artist nominees for 2009 comic book material, and anyone is eligible to vote (except the committee ink artists) for the 6 categories: FAVORITE INKER/ EMBELLISHER, MOST-ADAPTABLE, PROPS AWARD, The Small Press And Mainstream Independent Award (S.P.A.M.I), ALL-IN-ONE AWARD, and THE JOE SINNOTT HALL OF FAME AWARD. Vote for some categories or all six, your call.  Results will be posted simultaneously online at this site and Wizard's to correspond to the awards presentation the weekend of October 1-3.

Thanks for all of your support and please visit our generous sponsors. The Inkwell Awards are here to stay for the long haul!

Bob Almond

2/25/10

Previous letters

We're baaaack!

Have you ever noticed that the work of a particular inker adds that extra flair or polish to the jobs they do and that you will find yourself pumped to discover that a favorite story or series of yours is being inked by this artist and not someone else?  If so, this is where we'd like you to express your appreciation for that quality work.

We're not here to over-hype the status of the inker.  Inkers enter this biz understanding that they are not going to draw the same attention, or 'rock-star' status, as other crafts but will probably fall below the radar.  But, like almost everyone in the community, we do it for the passion for the art form ('cuz certainly few of us are getting rich at it;-)).  And while most industry awards have a 'best' or 'favorite inker' category (but not all) we'd like to draw special recognition here for the ink artist, his craft, and his history.  This has been my intent for a while now and I've taken notice of and contacted some folks over time who didn't credit ink artists and to please do so in reviews, art samples/reprints, collections cover credits, and solicitations and I've offered to help identify those artists in some cases; simply credit where credit was/is due.  Inkers used to traditionally receive such credit alongside the pencil artist as a team or as part of the 'big three' of 'writer, penciler, & inker' but for whatever reason policies have changed at some companies the last few years and while the color artists have justifiably received more attention for their recent digital innovations, the significance of the inker has diminished somewhat and has not been helped by some with limited budgets into using the process of skipping the production step altogether, having a colorist work straight over the pencil art with mixed results. 

It was in my "Inkblots" column in Blue Line Pro's SKETCH magazine #35 (2008) that I came up with a much smaller-scale version of the Inkwell Awards you see here to bring back some awareness and appreciation for what we bring to the sequential art process in most cases: quality.  (and we truly want to certify that we make these gestures without any intended malice or agenda against any specific publisher or their editors).

It was after seeking input from my inking brothers on the Yahoo 'Inkwell' mailing list that some more ideas developed and I proceeded to gather others who shared my conviction in order to restructure and expand the concept of the awards together.  It's a huge thanks to them that this function is active as it is...and it is to the unsung inker that this awards proceeding is dedicated.  We're simply happy to inform and reward our own.  Someone has to.

Please take a moment to look over the categories as they've been revised from year one.  Instead of career-retrospective categories, except for The Joe Sinnott Award, they are targeted at inked material from the previous year of 2008.  A separate Nomination Committee has been selected to nominate candidates now that will be posted this spring for you to choose from.  Open to both the public fans and the industry, WE WELCOME ALL!  Please feel free to vote for every category or only those you feel informed enough about (some may be more 'shop-centric' for the creator community).

Voting will run from June 1- June 30th, 2009.  Results will be tabulated and posted here and at the Inkwell Awards forum, if not at other venues, and subsequently, award trophies distributed.  The Inkwell Awards Committee members who are also inkers and Nominator inkers are not eligible for nominations.  After the Nominators choices, The IA committee will ultimately judge eligibility of all nominees.

All advertising and fund-raising revenue will be used only for Inkwell Awards-related expenses.

Thanks for voting!  And please visit our generous sponsors!

Bob Almond

2/02/09