Okay folks, let's try this 'bio' thing again! Prior efforts were either lost or obsolete before they could hit the site. My full name is William Horace Blanchard (You in the back, stop snickering!). But I got stuck with Inky in 1987, which I wasn't too fond of. I have a tendency to get inky on myself by just looking at it, and someone once called me 'that ****er' when he couldn't remember my name (Will). The nickname stuck like mange on a stray, whether I liked it or not. Someone later speller it 'Inkee' on a joke license thing, and that was easier to live with and it's been with me for 15 years.

Peculiars of my background? I was born and raised in Newport News and Hampton Virginia, got the hell out as soon as I could read a map and hold up my thumb. I was born in 1960 but still have all my hair, my hair color and lots of my youthful rebelliousness. Single, no kids.

It was late in 1983 or '84, while contemplating the error of my ways (or wondering what's for lunch) in jail in Daytona that my career in art began. I doodled this little flower on an envelope just for something to do, and some guy offered to buy it from me. By the time we went to dinner I'd sold 3 or 4 of them and could buy a pack of smokes in the chow hall machine. That flower was about all that I could draw, and I liked the coins it got me, so I put it thru its paces, sold all I could! But sales began to peter out before long. Guys would say 'that flower is really nice and my lady likes the ones I've sent her, but now I've had it with ribbons, with hearts, with hearts and ribbons. I've bought it on vines across the envelope and vines around the envelope. You've sold me every variation on that flower there could be. Can ya draw me something different?'

Well seeing as how I liked the coins I made drawing, it was time to learn something new or do without. So I figured out how to draw a frog…. on a lily pad.

And I steadily added to my repertoire. By the time I got out (2 years) I was pretty good with pen and pencil, so I went into sign painting for a short while, but that didn't last. I quickly learned that lots of folks are eager to pay artistic stuff, up until it's time to collect. 'I know we agreed on $300 to do both plate glass windows but you only used about $10 worth of paint and two days time. I think $50 is fairer but I'll give you $75.' Screw that.

Friends where I was living in Pennsy wanted me to tattoo them, so I went ahead and gave it a shot. We cobbled together a snazzy little homemade machine, used an old telegraph key for the foot switch and went to town, Higgins away! Did some fine looking pieces too, but they just didn't seem to take at all. Hell, nobody told me ya had to sharpen the damn guitar strings! So I left that alone for a while.

Then I found myself back in Daytona, which had to be the practice dummy capital of the world, and I gave it another shot.

'Tattoo Jay' was an old school ink slinger who'd shot down his shop up north, took up bartending in Daytona and did some tattooing on the side. He saw some of my early efforts and deciding I was on the right track, began to school me in the basics.

In no time flat, I was inking up a storm, all up and down the east coast, and adding to my equipment whenever I could.

Back then, shops were scarce compared to now and many places that now have several shops didn't allow tattooing at all. Tattoo magazines were just then being thought of and tattoo suppliers were fewer and harder to find. While today's mainstream acceptance of tattooing is nice, I kinda miss the old outlaw aspect of it. Truckers, bikers, strippers, and bartenders were the clientele, now its cheerleaders on their 18th birthday, frat boys wanting kanji's and moms with a midlife crisis and a PTA meeting to get to. It's all good, I reckon I'm just at that age to start missing 'the good old days.' But I digress…..

After 3 years of being 'Inkee' and tattooing all over the eastern USA, having adventured you wouldn't believe, I landed in Cleveland, Ohio with $15, my equipment and 14 small sheets of my flash. Problem? No way! I was just passing thru, hit a strip bar with my book to round up some quick road cash, normal state of affairs back then. I met up with Joe and Angel. He was a huge, but laid back biker/bouncer, she was his sassy little dancer fiancée. They offered me a free apartment in a place owned by Joe's mom, so I began a resident of Cleveland. In no time flat, I was the tattooist for 5 or 6 bars worth of dancers and bartenders, spoiled rotten and loving it. The night Joe and Angel's wedding, after the reception, I was in one of 'my' bars when it hit the fan.

Some disgruntled jerk who'd been asked to leave the reception (for being a disgruntled jerk) got pissed off when a dancer bought me a beer. In the blink of an eye, this big drunk gorilla was in my face fixin' to kick my narrow ass for the fun of it. So I broke a beer over his head, strictly instinct.

He got stitches; I got 4 to 15 in prison. Felonious assault. I started my bit last '92, but I didn't get into jailhouse tattooing for more reasons than I have space to list. Rather than earn a few soups, smokes, and cookies (not to mention visits to the hole) from tattooing, I worked a legit hustle and made money hand over fist making awesome wooden lighter cases. I sent home around 300 at a time, mom got $7.50 to $15 each for them.

I decided to invest some of this cash, which I spent fast as I made, on some new equipment for when I finally made parole. First off, I ordered all the supply catalogs I could, and that led me to an even better idea.

Why not try to trade artwork for the stuff I want? Superior tattoo equipment was pretty new then and didn't have much flash, so I tried them first. I sent 5 or 6 little designs to them. Didn't really expect a response but got one six days later. The letter was short, had 4 questions, numbered.

1. How much of this can you do?
2. How fast can you do it?
3. What do you think is fair price?
4. Do you need and art supplies? If so, we'll buy them.

I wish I still had that letter but it wasn't safe to keep it. Evidence, ya know! 'Class II- rule 20= business operations without the express written consent of the managing officer (warden) or his designer, which shall include usury.'

My timing had been perfect. Superior was getting ready to print their third catalog when my sample came in, and hadn't added a single sheet of flash from what was in their first one. By the time they got the last color sheet from me, they'd already laid out the catalog using my line work and went right to press, 10,000 copies with 'featuring designs by Wm 'Inkee' Blanchard' in bold black print inside. As quick as those 10,00 copies went out, my stuff sold like hotcakes and convinced superior to invest in flash in a big way soon after. Jeff Bartels came along and took the spot I'd held as top seller, but I'm still up there, along with Radical Ron Antonick.

In between doing flash for superior and others who no longer exist, I did flyers, business cards and T-shirt designs for a few shops, sent tons of stuff into magazines, stuff like that. Went thru about 10 or 12 charges and/or investigations of 'class II-Rule 20= business operations' but always won. They finally confiscated my art supplies, called my pens 'tattooing pens' and the scotch tape I bought in the commissary became 'tattoo transfer tape.' I finagled myself a 'disciplinary transfer' to a higher custody joint and got stuff sent back in, but didn't use it for over a year. This 'tougher' joint was heaven after where I'd been! No more dorms. I had a two man cell and my own TV set! After 4 years of not looking at TV (78 guys to one TV, wasn't worth looking at), I was mesmerized by reruns of Seinfeld, Grace Under Fire, and the like, none of which I'd ever seen. I didn't draw for well over a year.

See more of Inkee's tattoo designs here!

Some brothers (Snake and Al) in a Texas tattoo shop (Diablo Graphics) kept bugging me to draw more flash so I dusted off my prismacolors and did up several sheets to send to flash magazine, but let Diablo make copies first.

This got my juices flowing again, so I began to crank out some new stuff to sell as 'Diablo flash' thru an ad in tattoo magazine. Didn't make much on that but I was on a roll, so I kept on drawing more, knowing I'd eventually put it to good use.

I paroled out in December of 99 and was like a kid in a candy store, but I couldn't decide on the candy I wanted and tried to sample them all. I'd planned to parole to Diablo Graphics in El Paso but Snake got in trouble and the shop folded just before my release, so I paroled to my home state instead. When I got out I had a car, a pile of sweet new flash (3 sets of that on sale here at Flash2xs.com!) and a trunkload of tattoo equipment, along with the small 'name' I'd made thru Superior.

J.D. Crowe, the originator of mass market color flash, the man behind 'tattoo brand,' has two shops near my hometown. When I sold copies of most of my stuff to the guy in one of his shops, then was asked to sign some, I realized that I was onto something bigger than I'd thought, which began the whole 'candy store' thing. My P.O let me go anywhere in the state I pleased to pimp my flash, long as I had my business license and checked in once a month. It was just too much freedom for a guy who'd been locked up almost 8 years and had forgotten how to moderate things. Not that I was never all that moderate in the first place!

So, I went kinda buck wild. Nothing criminal, just slipping out of state on the sly, stuff like that. Caught a DUI after 6 months, thought it would put me back in the joint, so I panicked and split.

Yep, a kid in a candy store with too much instant freedom. I'd see my old flash on the walls between ¼ to 1/3 of the many shops I'd walk into. And you can bet that a lot who didn't have my old flash when I came in, sure had some of the new before I walked out! Job offers were too numerous to count but I'd just stick around as a guest for a real short bit, then move on . . . too restless. I still did a bit of underground work too, but on a scale most weren't expecting to see. When I rolled into the set up, it took 3 trips. Sterelizer, unltrasonic, machine case, boxes of stuff, I toted a complete shop in the back seat of my little tempo. Hard to miss me with 100 shop stickers on the car and Inkee on the tags!

I hit Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan in a series of road trips. Signing copies of flash magazine, finding myself in some magazines I hadn't known I was in, selling and signing flash, trading equipment (30 machines in 6 months alone), basically living my dreams, until I got nailed for another DUI in Pennsylvania.

I went back to Ohio in October of 2001, to face my parole violation. In December 2001 they sent me to a halfway house in Cincinnati.

I quickly found work in kicks shop east of Cincinnati, Queen City Tattoo, and kept my nose clean like I was suppose to. I did the whole halfway house program by the book and was set to get on with my life, the right way. No beer, no shop hopping, just work all I can for a year and save all my money, get off parole and go open my own place in Pennsy. My 'case manager' used me as an example for others to follow; I was serious about doing this program thing with no trouble so I could get it behind me.

So my case manager takes me in to see my P.O. to tell her I'd aced the program and was ready to go. I guessed my P.O. hadn't taken her Prozac lately because she went off on me! She's yelling at me for things I'd done wrong and I'm giving back the facts that prove her wrong while my case manager is trying to say I'd done it by the book all the way and mostly gets ignored. When she got around to my lack of bank account, I whipped out my checkbook and put it on her table. She snatched it up, threw it at my head and tossed me out of the program.

If there's still no pic of me on this site, I'll try to pester people who have some to send one in! More flash? It's drawn and ready but not currently accessible. Sooner or later, Lou will have it for ya!