The two winners of Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame Award are Allen Milgrom and Keith Williams.
Winners of the SASRA, in alphabetical order, are Mike DeCarlo, Walter Simonson and Bob Smith.
Joe Sinnott’s son, Mark, an artist and Inkwell special ambassador, shared the following statement for the JOE SINNOTT HALL OF FAME:
“There have been 36 outstanding ink artists inducted into the Hall of Fame since it began in 2008. This year we are thrilled to add 2 more fine inkers to that list, Al Milgrom and Keith Williams. These two men are tremendous comic book artists that have left their mark on the comic world. What a great delight looking through page after page of comics that Al and Keith had the good fortune to embellish, seeing their fantastic inks and bringing great enjoyment to us through their work.
“Our first winner of The Joe Sinnott Hall Of Fame Award is Al Milgrom. Al was previously nominated for the Hall of Fame Award in 2019. He has worked for several comic companies in his career most notably at Archie, DC and Marvel and he wore many hats along the way as an editor, writer, penciler and inker. His work can be seen in numerous DC and Marvel books with long runs on Spider-man related issues as well as ‘The Mighty Thor’ and ‘X-Factor’. My greatest recollection of Al’s work was in seeing his pencilled pages inked by my dad. They would produce some very nice ‘Incredible Hulk’ and ‘ROM Spaceknight’ covers as well as a large number of marvelous ‘Avengers’ and ‘West Coast Avengers’ comics. In 2017, Al would receive the Inkwell Awards Special Recognition Award. He would be instrumental in keeping my dad’s legacy going by being the featured artist in the 2025 Inkwell Awards Joe Sinnott Legacy Inking Challenge. Al would produce a wonderful version of The Hulk that several ink artists, as well as my wife Belinda and myself would try their hand at inking. Thank you for that wonderful tribute, Al. At shows, my dad would always enjoy talking with fans and comic creators. I recall the 2018 East Coast Comic Con in New Jersey. Al would stop by Joe’s table to say hello. They hadn’t seen each other in quite some time, and were engaged in a nice long talk. A large crowd of fans gathered around them, just to hear their conversation. What a thrill it had to be for them to hear these two gentlemen talking comics.
Mark presented Al with his trophy and Al’s statement can be found in the livestream recording.
Mark continued: “Next is our second Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame Award recipient, Keith Williams. Keith was previously nominated for the Hall of Fame Award in 2023. Keith started working for Marvel Comics in 1982, mainly doing background work for several artists including Joe. It was at that time that my dad would recognize Keith’s talents as he was inking backgrounds for Joe on several of his pages, and doing a very commendable job. Keith would become Marvel Comics first John Romita “Raider” responsible for doing art corrections. Along with Christopher Priest, Keith would become part of the first all-black editorial team at Marvel. Keith would go on to ink the ‘Web of Spider-Man’, ‘Silver Surfer’, ‘Sensational She-Hulk’, and ‘X-Men’ among others. Keith has been a longtime inker on the syndicated comic strip The Phantom, and has done several Superman books for DC Comics. He has also had his work published in Dark Horse, Valiant and Moonstone Comics. He is a recipient of the Inkwell Awards’ Above And Beyond Award in 2023 for his involvement and contributions to both the Joe Sinnott Inking Tribute/Legacy Challenge and the spin-off Spotlight Challenge. He has contributed each year to these Inkwell Awards Challenges inking 22 characters out of 24 in all at the time. Joe would enjoy seeing all of the inked Challenge pieces each year, and got great pleasure in seeing the numerous contributions by Keith, who was by far the most prolific inker to participate. Keith would be at many conventions over the years that Joe attended and we always had a great time at these shows talking and reminiscing with Keith.” Keith’s statement can be found in the livestream recording.
Mark closed with “I would like to thank The Inkwell Awards for all that they do to promote the art of inking. I know that my dad, Joltin’ Joe was very honored to be a part of this organization, and he would be very proud to have Al Milgrom and Keith Williams, as the 37th and 38th recipients of the Joe Sinnott Hall Of Fame Award. Congratulations to these gentlemen on a fantastic career and a job well done.”
Almond announced the STACEY ARAGON SPECIAL RECOGNITION AWARD/SASRA winners.
“First was WALTER SIMONSON who couldn’t make the ceremony. Bob shared “Walter’s remarkable and influential career spans six decades as an artist and writer for every major publisher and several independent ones on series/characters such as Thor, Fantastic Four, Detective Comics where he co-created Manhunter, Metal Men, Orion, Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars and X-Factor among others. It was on Walt’s first of two runs on Thor that he was inked by Joe Sinnott, which is why he was the featured artist in our Sinnott Inking Challenge in 2023. He’s also known for creating Beta Ray Bill and his creator-owned properties Star Slammers and Ragnarok. These works earned him a multitude of awards from the Eisners, Shazam, Inkpot, Harveys and even the “All-in-One Award” from the Inkwells in 2022 for Ragnarok. He serves on the Hero Initiative Disbursement Committee and is married to the just as legendary writer and editor Louise Simonson, both of whom had cameo appearances in the 2011 MCU film Thor: The Dark World. Walt is one of those creators who deserves the title of Creator because he’s the complete package of writer, penciller & inker. Walter pencilled a lot of pages in the 1970s that he didn’t ink but he doesn’t usually ink other artists, so his pencilling output may exceed his inking output, which means he flies under the radar for the Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame consideration but he definitely deserves a lifetime achievement award for his ink work. He couldn’t make it here today but he did send us the following acceptance statement via video.”
Almond then introduced Mike DeCarlo with a summary of career highlights. At the podium Mike shared the following statement: “I started collecting comics in late1962 and within a couple of years after that, I began to notice how different my favorite pencilers looked when inked by different collaborators. Being almost exclusively a Marvel Comics collector, my observations centered around what I saw occurring on pages drawn by Kirby, Heck, Ditko and Ayers. This would be around 1964 or 65. I can remember the glaring difference between when Kirby was inked by Sol Brodsky or Chic Stone. How Steve Ditko looked best only when he inked himself. The same thing with Don Heck. I also noticed how Dick Ayers, a pretty good penciler, was used by Stan Lee to constantly ink almost all the different pencilers he had at the time with Marvel.
By 1965, as Marvel became more successful, they brought in more pencilers and more inkers to further the cause. Vince Colletta, Frank Giacoia, Joe Sinnott and Wally Wood on occasion were the new group of ink artists Colletta was and continues to be, an inker of polarizing merit. But even back then, I could see that Vince looked quite nice with some pencilers and on certain genres and at best mediocre in other situations.
I filed that in my young mind. Strangely, until I was about 20, I had no interest in being able to ink. I was just always trying to learn to draw better, most always in pencil.
What an amazing crash course I was fortunate enough to receive from one of the greatest inkers in the history of comic books. The beauty was that Dick was a highly trained artist in general and not only taught me how to ink professionally, but how to draw better and how to meld my skills with whatever artist I was paired with. He also taught me the business side of comics and what my responsibilities were to my company.
Have a manageable ego and always meet deadlines. For the next 35 years, I got to work on an amazing number of important titles and with many, many great artists, who, by studying them as I inked, made me a better artist in turn. There were a few regrettable sides of being mostly seen as an inker: Editors and fans did not always appreciate your efforts and some editors felt you were disposable and some fans thought you were just a tracer of pencils. During the 1990s, I began to sense that I truly needed to improve as an artist in general or I was never going to be regarded in the way I had always dreamed to be. I drifted towards animation and “company artwork”, which entails style guides and advertising and retail and out of mainstream superheroes. It was in these new directions that I began to get more chances to become the all-around artist that I always wanted to be. And my thanks to DC marketing, Warner animation, Disney and The Simpsons for helping my cause.
Any inking done is on my own pencils so if I do a rotten job, I can only yell at myself.
I do miss the heyday of the bronze age in comics, but I don’t miss the deadlines and the holidays often spent at the drawing board.
This award validate 35 years of effort and I appreciate it very much.”
“Thank you for the “Stacey Aragon Special Recognition Award”.
In August it will be 50 years since I started my professional inking career working for DC Comics, where I was hired by Carmine Infantino to ink Ramona Fradon’s Plastic Man. As I recall I was so nervous that it took about 24 hours before I could take an ink loaded brush to the pages. At DC I worked with many pencillers on many titles until 1998, at which point I went over to Archie Comics.
I’ve been working for Archie for 27 years now and have enjoyed working with pencillers like Stan Goldberg, Dan Parent, Holly Golightly, and Fernando Ruiz. Even though Archie has a house look for the characters every penciller has their own style which keeps it interesting for me. I hope to keep work there as long as my eyes and fingers hold out.
I guess I’m an old-fashioned inker, still working with brushes, quill pens, India ink and markers. Digital inking has never really tempted me. I like the feel of brushes and pens on paper even though now the “pencils” are blue-line print outs.
As inker Tex Blaisdell once told me, “Keep making the lines”.
Thank you again for the award.”
An honorary KEEPER OF THE FLAME AWARD was also presented for Larry Lieber, 93, younger brother of Stan Lee, who was planning to attend but subsequently had to back out for health reasons. It was to honor him for seven decades of career achievement in the industry as a writer, editor and artist which includes INKING. It was presented by the Inkwells but produced by Hershey Con promoter Joe Figured. Larry’s statement was sent via video in his absence.
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