The winners of the Inkwell Awards, presented to the best in comic book inking, have been announced. Inking Legend Joe Sinnott won the first Joe Winnott Award, but I guess that’s why he’s a legend. 5000 votes were cast in the various categories.
FAVORITE INKER (RETRO)
TERRY AUSTIN (winner-tie)
JOE SINNOTT (winner-tie)
Tom Palmer (runner-up)

FAVORITE INKER (MODERN)
TIM TOWNSEND (winner)
Danny Miki (runner-up)

FAVORITE FINISHER/EMBELLISHER (RETRO)
TOM PALMER (winner)
Joe Sinnott (runner-up)

FAVORITE FINISHER/EMBELLISHER (MODERN)
KEVIN NOWLAN (winner)
Norm Rapmond (runner-up)

MOST-ADAPTABLE INKER
TIM TOWNSEND (winner)
Danny Miki (runner-up)

MOST PROLIFIC INKER
DANNY MIKI (winner)
Joe Sinnott (runner-up)

PROPS AWARD
DANNY MIKI (winner)
Mark Irwin (runner-up)

THE CALL OF DUTY AWARD
BOB ALMOND (winner)
Tim Townsend (runner-up)

MVP AWARD
DANNY MIKI (winner)
Tim Townsend (runner-up)

THE JOE SINNOTT AWARD
JOE SINNOTT (winner)
Al Williamson (runner-up)

1 COMMENT

  1. I’m kind of sad looking at this list. Considering the quality inkers out there who work on many a great book, and Dan Miki is considered the best? I’m surprised he’s even there on most adaptable. Dude’s ruined so many pencils.

  2. The inkwell awards – or the “who is not awarding Scott Koblish now awards!”

    Well – You’ll all pay for this snub! Retribution will be swift! I’ll dance on your inky graves!

  3. Kind of Sad when people bash an Inker, especially one that got so many fan and peer votes of close to 5000 in four of the catagories.

    Sounds like someones a little green.

    It was write ins for the first year so that the awrds would see what fans actually think and not just someone’s opinion.

    with my e-mail backed up at 99% positive feesback tells me the majority of participants loved it.

    Press release was premature so that we take responsiblity for. Site goes up tonite for results.

  4. Good call Jimmy; like I said, really an honor to even be mentioned with the luminaries on that list. All incredible inkers in their own right. And anyone bashing anyone on that list (with the exception of me; bash away, I understand:) just doesn’t understand the art form, or how good you have to be to do what they do.

  5. Just for the record, to my understanding, the awards committee did not do the voting, the fans did the voting. If you are unhappy with the results of the Inkwell Awards, I suggest you vote for your favorite and try to pimp them out next time. I voted and while a couple of my votees did win (Kevin Nowlan baby!), most did not. An admirable first effort of which I expect will be many more. Kudos.

  6. How can a guy on the awards committee be a winner — in two categories, no less? To avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, did he disqualify himself from the judging process?

    And how come Hilary Barta is nowhere to be found?

    I’m just askin’ — ya know??

    Other than that, congrats to the winners!

  7. >And how come Hilary Barta is nowhere to be found?
    >
    >I’m just askin’ — ya know??

    Looking quickly at the tally sheet, the answer is simply because it was a WRITE-IN ballot and no one voted for him.

    You didn’t vote for him? I’m just askin’…..

    Bob Almond

  8. As for the judging process, it was Jimmy Tournas who the ballots were emailed to so he tallied them up and the rest of the committee looked over the winners and runners-up to confirm that everyone was eligible from our rules.

    Bob Almond

  9. Tim Townsend actually asked to be removed when he found out. But since he has no connection with the actual voting, or counting of the ballots, we felt we should leave him in.

    This leaves a fair representation of what the voters wanted. The process was fair and honest, but I do see where confusion sets in and will be addressed next Year. So thanks for asking because I see where it might look funny. But we made a decision.

    Bob Almond has always had the back of Inkers and education thereof so winning a props award was kind of cool. (I thought it would be someone else but don’t tell him.)

    Mark Irwin you have some fans out there as well and I was surprised at the wide amount of names nominated for the first year.

    But we will address how we will work members of the committee into awards next year. I think the distinction is that where they have no influence with me on the Ballots whatsover after the awards start. so confusion is that there may be a conflict, when there was none.

    Be assured I take myself very seriously as far as integrity, so In the future we will be more informative as to the process to put any questions to rest.

    Also if there is an inker who was not nominated then it was because there was not a ballot with their name on it, Very simple, people have to vote.

    It does not mean they were not good enough or popular. Just means someone that may have nominated them might not even know the awards existed. Hopefully more people will be aware next year. We get nothing out of this ourselves and I have spent many, many hours as well as the others to get the Inkwell Awards off the ground. So we would love to make everyone happy about it.

    So e-mail me with suggestions for next year guys and Gals because heaven Knows this is new and we aim to please.

    And I am not breaking balls on the Danny Miki remark for spite, because I don’t Know him, Never Met him, Don’t know what he looks like yet. But he got a boat load of votes on legit ballots, where people put a different name in every catagory. So he must be very popular as far as the votes went. So if you just say “he stinks”, it looks like sour grapes. And he may not be as good an inker as me (Of course I’m Joking Here), he must be doing something right for his fans and fellow inkers.

    So bear with us while we grow, and these comments are definately worth seeing because we learn something from them for next year. Hopefully we can get a board on the site for people to comment etc.

    So e-mail me any ideas helping us develop and grow.

    Jimmy T

  10. Yeah, Tim’s a terrific inker — it’s just that I’ve been involved with so many voting panel/board situations, my alarm bells are attuned to such stuff.

    I’m such a nut about conflict of interest issues, back in 1996, before I just started TALKING to Marvel about doing a custom comic book for my organization, I sold the 10 shares of Marvel stock my mom had given me as a gift a few years earlier. As it turned out, it was a smart move. I sold my shares in the mid-$20 range, and Marvel shares went down the toilet a couple of months later when they declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

  11. Everyone who won definitely deserves it! I love to see inkers get credit.

    I’m sure the voting was legit, but it is interesting how some of the top guys working these days like Scott Williams, Art Thibert, Klaus Jansen, Jimmy Palmiotti, Drew Geraci, Mark Farmer, John Dell and Scott Hanna didn’t even show up in any of the categories.

    I think any CBR or Wizard awards poll in the last 5 years mentions most or all of these guys in the top ten, in addition to Tim and Danny who got the props the deserve.

    Hmmm…

    Maybe the categories need to be more defined so there is less repetition in votes?

  12. Hi Aaron,

    Yes, we will be re-evaluating the categories for next year.

    Did you see the nominees list at the site? All those names were on it and I know from looking at the tally that they were all near the top for votes after the runner-up. There can be only one winner and we had to go by majority vote count.

    And who says that CBR and Wizard are the be all and end all of what is what in this community? They are but two sources and not everyone use those sources. I would imagine that more inkers voted in this award or will by next year than some other sources when it comes to voting for inkers and I would put more faith in our professional peers myself.

    Again, it is what it is and we’re not perfect. But every year we get better;-)

    Bob Almond

  13. I here you about alarm bells. I feel bad that we may have anyone think Tim or Bob’s win was anything less then what it was. Tim felt so strongly that he wanted to be let off so the runner up would get the award and so we will change things in the future.

    Hopefully we will put a system in place to let people see what is happening during voting.

    The idea is to help the inkers not to have anyone feel bad. Most people are positive and so we will try to get those others more involved to see how it works.

    Thanks for the thoughts guys.

    Jimmy

  14. The revised awards press release stated: “Tim has made this decision due to a series of unfounded and malicious personal attacks upon his character and integrity”

    Really?

    Maybe I don’t frequent the right Web sites, but I never saw anyone make personal attacks against Tim Townsend regarding the initial Inkwell Awards results.

    What was questioned (and questioned very legitimately) was the APPEARANCE of a conflict of interest in the awards process by having an individual on the awards committee nominated, and then selected, for multiple awards.

    The solution, of course, is to have people on the awards committee who are prominent in the comics industry, but are not inkers. That way, there is no way an awards committee member can be nominated and possibly win.

    The PROCESS was flawed, not Tim Townsend.

    As I said previously, I think Townsend is a great inker. He no doubt deserved to win. What baffles me is that no one on the committee thought this might be an issue should ANYONE on the awards committee be nominated and win. That’s Conflict of Interest 101 stuff.

    One more thing: As someone who has been inking for more than 35 years, I appreciate – probably more than most – the effort and skill that goes into the inking process.

    Some of my favorite inkers (in no particular order) are: Joe Sinnott, Russ Heath, Mark Farmer, Wally Wood, Hilary Barta, George Klein, Bernie Wrightson, Chic Stone, John Severin, Bill Elder, Frank Giacoia, Steve Ditko, Dick Ayers, Kurt Schaffenberger, Terry Austin, Dan Adkins, Jerry Ordway, Tom Palmer, Eric Powell, Will Eisner, Carl Barks, Bob Montana, Johnny Craig, Walt Kelly, Basil Wolverton, Mike Ploog, Dan DeCarlo, Joe Maneely, C.C. Beck, Bill Everett, Syd Shores, Russ Manning, Frank Cho, Dave Stevens, Jim Engel, Bob Oksner, Mike Royer, Nestor Redondo, Brian Bolland, Jim Lee and Dick Sprang.