The "Newsflash" section at the top of this page now lists my confirmed show apps for the year along with the Inkwell Awards unless specified not. The premiere show of the year

is the Ace Comic Con: Northeast- Boston on March 20-22. We previously attended Ace's first show in 2017 in Long Island, NY and this is their first time at this venue at the 

Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (BCEC) which is the same location that FanExpo Boston Comic Con has been setting up the last 3 years. GSCF and Terrificon are annual

supporters of us so that's automatic every year with much ongoing thanks to promoters Dave O'Hare & Sal Zurzolo and Mitch Hallock, respectively. I hope to attend The Kubert School

scholarship awards ceremony to reward a student the Inkwell's Dave Simons Inkwell Memorial Scholarship Fund in Dover, NJ. There is a show confirmed that I'm not at

the liberty to announce yet until they do this winter/spring and atentative one or two towards the end of the year. I'll post any updates here and on my Facebook page.

From my photo album on Facebook:

"I knew the book was being released this month (for Black History month, probably) but I didn't expect to have a comped copy appear in the mail through Diamond Distributions. I'm hoping my pals Sal Velluto, Don McGregor and Priest got one each. I'm guessing maybe it was sent by Marvel Special Projects editor Mark D. Beazley as the office may've connected us with author Jess Harrold for an interview. It was a while ago so the memory is certainly hazy. Thank you to any who were involved.

I was at first a bit surprised at the small size of the HC book (6.25" X 8.25") since art books usually are BIG so that the art can be truly appreciated, but as I flipped through it I was seriously impressed because there were a LOT of images spanning from the Black Panther's first appearance in FF by Lee/Kirby/Sinnott all the way to contemporary material from the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda by Coates/Acuna! (And it’ll fit perfectly on my shortage of shelf space!!)The reproduction is excellent! (I should give props to Rodolfo Muraguchi for the book design.) Every incarnation of T'Challa over the years is broken down into chapters and from interviews we had there are numerous quotes printed in-between and around the images from creators like Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Don McGregor, Jonathan Maberry, Dwayne McDuffie, Steve Epting, Joe Jusko, Priest (who also writes the intro), Mark Texeira, Reginald Hudlin, Sal Velluto and myself (pages 148-175 is mostly a showcase for our art as the longest-running art team and various statements we make pertaining to the art, collaboration together with Priest and our mindset on the creative process), John Romita Jr., David Liss, Jonathan Hickman, Brian Stelfreeze, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Chris Sprouse, Jason Aaron, Daniel Acuna, Alex Ross, Ryan Coogler and so many more!

The selection of artists' work, like in the gallery, is overflowing with eclectic variety and inspiration. Every significant BP cover and interior artist, and then some, were included: Kirby, John Buscema, Denys Cowan & Sam Dela Rosa, Ken Lashley & Paul Neary, Simone Bianchi, Stelfreeze, Francesco Francavilla, Rich Buckler & Klaus Janson, Billy Graham, Bob McLeod, Jerry Bingham, John Byrne, Dwayne Turner, Gene Colan & Tom Palmer, Texeira, Jusko, Mike Manley, Norm Breyfogle, Andy Kubert, Jim Calafiore, Kyle Hotz & Eric Powell, Joe Quesada & Jimmy Palmiotti, JRJr & Janson, Frank Cho, Ross, Scott Eaton, Alan Davis & Mark Farmer, Jason Pearson, Michael Turner, J. Scott Campbell, Epting, Tom Raney, Mike Deodato Jr., Sprouse & Karl Story, Walden Wong, Dexter Vines, Mark Morales, Alitha Martinez, Butch Guice & Mack Chater, Acuna, Art Adams, Sal & myself, and so many more including a celebration of variant Panther covers, too! While there are a few errors when credited is attributed for each image, they get it correct most of the time and credit the penciler, inker and the colorist, artists all! (Thankfully, my pal Mark McKenna was not erroneously credited this for those Velluto covers with "MM" in Sal's signature which was Latin for the year 2000 as it was in the 2018 book Black Panther: The Illustrated History of a King.)
Highly Recommended! 352 pages, $29.99"

In an 11th hour development Bob and the Inkwell Awards were recently invited to the 4th SYRACUSE NEW YORK COMIC CON on Saturday December 7! It's a new venue for us and only a one-day show.

But the Inkwells will have senior contributor Mike Prast to help cover the booth and they'll be introducing the latest, new Ms. Inkwell spokesmodel Becka Sargent. Hope to see you there!

As I've mentioned here in the past, for years now my popular commission gallery has not been updated due to website problems going back to my webmaster who created this site after my original site was going to collapse under the weight of the files there. My second Joomla gallery here (@170+ entries) allowed me to expand from the original (@270+entries), now archived, and link to it, preserving the record of my career commissions and unpublished and try-out work. When I could no longer go in to update it it was in a state of limbo and my webmaster and I had a falling out with me so he was no help. I recently had my gallery chronicler Damon Owens help me launch my personal ComicArtFans gallery as a third location to post my past 70+entries I'd been saving on my desktop. (Just too bad it doesn't allow urls to link visitors to my archived and current galleries.) After six were posted my website server told me that the gallery section was taking up too much space and it had been scanned and I was told that I had to remove it within a week or risk my site shutting down and possibly not be retreivable. Thus I pulled in my two Inkwell Awards webmasters Rhys & Steven to help tech-ignorant me to save the material but first remove it post-haste. This immediate threat was resolved and this site's gallery doesn't exist now. Rhys was going to transfer it on WordPress and use Flickr for the gallery but he told me I'd lose all my archived material including the first 270+ of commission entries. So Original webmaster Tim Aslat is studying my Joomla site in hopes of upgrading all the necessary problem areas and have enough space for my gallery section. So in the meantime, I'm not sure if I'll continue adding entries to the CAF gallery but hopefully in 2020 I'll get my limbo gallery returned and have updated it with 70+entries. <crosses fingers>

Last year my bud Mike Lilly appeared at That's Entertainment, a legendary comic book specialty shop in Worcester, MA, to sign on the 6th annual Batman Day. I helped him ink the Batman/Catwoman wedding print (colored by David Ocampo) that was given away to the first 100 attendees. But Mike wasn't able to get me invited to said event. This year he did. So last week I inked a new print image as seen here, also colored by David (who lives in Mexico so he won't be at this event). I'd attended this store several times over the years and the place is simply magical, like a time capsule comic book store from the late 1970s-1980s. One time I signed there alongside Mike when we were doing Annihilation: Conquest- Quasar with writer Christos Gage who's family lives nearby. So if you're in the area please consider dropping in, all the info is on the promo flyer below. I'll be the annoying, giddy, balding fankid. HA!