In 2008, Spurlock, with artist and publisher Neal Adams and the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies Arts & Letters Council, spearheaded a petition campaign in which over 450 comic book creators and cartoonists urged the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum to return to artist Dina Babbitt seven portraits she was forced to paint in the Auschwitz death camp in 1944. Vanguard Productions' "Hal Foster: Prince of Illustrators, Father of the Adventure Strip" was a finalist for a 2003 "Independent Publisher" Book Award (the IPPY) in the "Popular Culture" category. It was nominated for a 2002 Eisner Award for "Best Comics-Related Book". Vanguard's "Wally's World: The Brilliant Life and Tragic Death of Wally Wood, the World's Second-Best Comic Book Artist" (2004), by Spurlock and Steve Sarger, was nominated for a 2007 Eisner Award for "Best Comics-Related Book". The original self-published limited edition of "The Art of Nick Cardy" by John Coates (Coates Publishing, 1999), which was reissued in a wider edition by Vanguard in 2001, was nominated for a 2000 Eisner Award for "Best Comics-Related Book". In March 2011, he was named Inkwell Awards Special Ambassador. He still holds that recognition at present.