The non-profit Inkwell Awards founder and Director Bob Almond made the following statement: “Earlier this week I 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 boxes 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, writer 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. In addition two books donated by J. David Spurlock of Vanguard Publishing like Irwin Hasen: Loverboy and The Edge tpb (Steranko cover- signed by Bill Sienkiewicz) were taken. Lastly, a couple of personal items of mine that I couldn’t fit into my own luggage are now missing as well. These include a 25 year old Armor Wars promo poster that I had Bob Layton sign at Heroes Con and a Creepy Presents Bernie Wrightson HC signed by Bernie as well as Walt Simonson at the show. The folded poster may’ve been within the Wrightson book or the Irwin Hasen Vanguard Publishing book. 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.”
Bob continued: “I’ve been asked why didn’t we use insurance at other forum venues. This is because our usual retailer ride that transports much of our luggage every year informed me at the last minute that they weren’t going to the show so in the 11th hour I had to transfer materials from luggage to eight parcels and ship them USPS priority mail with delivery confirmation and insurance costing $260 as I didn’t have the luxury of time to seek other shipping options for the best deals in order that the materials get to Charlotte, NC on time (something we’ll be prepared for should this happen again next time). On the way back following the Heroes Con weekend and awards ceremony we had no funds remaining, in fact we were in the hole and owed money, due to various unforeseen financial dilemmas that befell us prior and during that event. This meant that after waiting a few weeks to raise some funds on eBay to get out of debt and have enough to ship back the items I was able to pay my fellow Charlotte-area committee member Mike Kellar to ship everything back via media mail service with delivery confirmation but not insurance, costing us almost $100. Could we have waited another week to raise more for insurance? Sure. It was my fault, I take full responsibility and it was a huge learning lesson. I don’t need to be beat up about that. Many folks have been very kind and have shared our announcement on their social networks and a generous supporter even donated an unsolicited $25 to us which blew our minds.”
The Inkwell Awards is an official 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose mission is to promote and educate about the art form of comic book inking and to annually recognize and award the best ink artists and their work. Now setting up for their sixth year, the organization is overseen by a number of industry professionals such as founder & director Bob Almond, Jimmy Tournas, Michael W. Kellar, Stacey Aragon and Sarah L. Covert who make up the IA core committee, and Adam Hughes, Mike Marts, Ethan Van Sciver, Mark Brooks, Sal Velluto, Mike McKone, Trevor Von Eeden, J. David Spurlock, Cully Hamner, Phil Jimenez, Eric Basuldua, Jim Shooter and Joe Kubert who make up their IA ambassadors, and numerous contributors such as Dan Panosian, Louis Small, Jr., Tom Scloendorn, Randy Green and Jay Leisten among others. They sponsor the Dave Simons Inkwell Memorial Scholarship Fund for the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon & Graphic Art and host the Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame.
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- Inkwell Awards Celebrate Inkers at 2nd Annual Heroes Con Awards Ceremony!
- 2010 Inkwell Awards voting to commence on August 15 / Awards ceremony in October!
- Inkwell Award Founder Challenges Eisners to Restore Best Inker Category at Inkwell Awards!
- Inkwell Awards debut Ms. Inkwell and Inker Database for 2010
