Category: Blog

Autographs: Artists

November 21, 2023

Chances are, if you’ve purchased original art you got the ‘autograph’ of the artist with it, since most artists sign their works. As far as I know we own one original painting – a watercolour of a cat – and it is indeed hand signed by the artist.

But buying original art can get expensive very quickly, and may not even be possible with some (especially digital) artists. So it ends up being a challenge the same as any other sort of autograph.

We don’t have many autographs of artists, but the few we do include a couple of very special ones. As you’ll read, all of these were obtained in different ways as well. Here they are…

Fifteen years ago, at New York Comic Con, we were lucky enough to meet Simone Legno, creator of the brand Tokidoki. His star was still rising, and he was actually signing autographs! Not only did we get the above poster autographed, but he also drew a character on it. In addition he autographed a Tokidoki purse Kristin was using at the time:

What makes this special is I videoed him signing, and you can watch it on YouTube. How’s that for provenance! Incidentally the poster has been framed and hung on our wall ever since, and likely always will be.

Since I was a child I’ve loved the fantasy art of Chris Achilleos. About 30 years ago I bought a pack of trading cards of his work, and to my surprised found a redemption card for an autograph. I dutifully sent it off, and sure enough some weeks later received the above in the mail. It’s been a treasure ever since, and even more so now since he passed away a couple of years ago.

I can thank Adam for all of the above (I think). He obtained these signed basic land cards at Magic The Gathering events he went to, and gave them to me since he knew I collected the lands. The 11 cards are the work of 4 separate artists, and they’re all ‘real’ cards and not artist proofs. I believe he even prepared in advance and brought the cards with him. Now that’s a man that knows how to obtain an autograph!

Incidentally I said ‘I think’ because I have a dim memory of being inspired by him to do the very same thing, and bringing some cards to NYCC one year to get them signed. But did that actually happen? Who knows!

Autographs: Authors

November 20, 2023

When I was a child I had an autograph book. I believe I may have had a single autograph in it, and it was a football player I had no interest in but got the autograph of when he made an appearance at a mall. I remember I used to glue photos of famous people in the book and keep the opposite page empty for the autographs I would (of course) never obtain. I was an optimistic stripling!

Autograph collecting dates to a time before photos and the autographs were proof you met someone. Of course these days they’re more often purchased and signers can make a lot of money providing them. But even an impersonal autograph purchased from a shop is still a bit of a special item when it’s of someone you are a fan of, and I don’t judge anyone for wanting or buying them.

Recently I started thinking about all the autographed items we own now, and one thing led to another and then ultimately – as it often does – to this blog! This week therefore I’ll be showcasing most of the autographs Kristin and I have obtained over the years, in five different categories. We’ll start today with authors!

The above I’ve shown here before. I’m a big fan and collector of Fighting Fantasy books, and I treasure this pair of autographs of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, the two guys that created the series. These were sent to me by an Australian company in response to me tweeting out photos of my collection!

In a similar vein, I have Joe Dever’s autograph. He was the author of the Lone Wolf gamebook series, and some years ago special (expensive!) autographed editions of some of the books were released. To my great surprise Bernard sent me two of them, which means I have his autograph twice. Joe Dever passed away a few years ago, so this is a somewhat special mark to own.

Keeping in the RPG sphere, a decade or so ago I purchased a used copy of this Forgotten Realms AD&D box set and when it arrived I was astonished to see that it had been autographed. The two shown are Jeff Grubb and Ed Greenwood (who also wrote ‘Good gaming’), and it was also autographed by the editor. These may not be names you recognize, but each contributed enormously to Dungeons & Dragons and are well known to fans from that era.

Lastly I have Kim Newman’s autograph. He’s one of my favourite authors, and even though I already owned four imprints of Anno Dracula I naturally had to buy this fifth one when I saw it was autographed. I’d love to meet him in person and get a book autographed, but this is the next best thing!

I know I have at least one more hiding somewhere in this house, that being the author Tanith Lee who sent me a signed letter response to a letter I wrote her in my teens. Try as I could though I was unable to find it.

These are just the tip of the autograph iceberg. There’s many more to see this week, so stay tuned 🙂

Birthday Trip

October 10, 2023

We went to NYC for a few days to celebrate Kristins birthday. Once again we splurged for a room high above Bryant Park with a balcony.

It was cooler than we expected in the city and I probably wasn’t dressed for it, but we filled the first day with shopping at all our favourite spots.

We had fun, bought some interesting things and ate richly, as usual. Also as usual, we mostly ate at different times since we both prefer different things (and I eat freakishly early these days).

Here’s the view from the balcony at night:

On the second day we went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which we’d never visited before. It was very popular and bustling with people at the entrance, but it’s a large museum and didn’t seem packed inside.

That was the highlight. It’s (of course) Starry Night by Van Gogh, and neither of us knew it was there. In fact we were both so surprised to see it just hanging on a wall in the open we assumed it was a copy or something, but it is the actual painting which has been in the MoMA collection for over 80 years. It was genuinely moving to see, given the story behind it and how famous it is. Some believe it’s the most valuable painting in the world!

Of course MoMA has many other works, and we did our best to view all of them. I’ve been to modern art exhibits before and all I’ll say about much of what we saw is that the question of whether it was ‘art’ or not is perhaps more interesting (to me) than the pieces themselves.

Afterwards we did more shopping and eating and just soaking in the sights and character of the city. There was a parade as well, to celebrate Italian-Americans, and we watched the floats a bit as they went down 5th Avenue.

Although summer has passed and winter’s chill is starting to arrive, the city was still full of tourists. Times Square was busy as it always is and yesterday in particular shops and eateries were very full probably because it was a holiday (Columbus Day)?

Inside an empty shop we saw taller-than-man-sized reproductions of Star Wars PEZ dispensers being carved from styrofoam. Why and for what reason? We’ll probably never know…

Oh and it’s beginning to feel a bit like Christmas…

It was a very relaxing and fun few days, and while we exhausted ourselves filling each day with activities.

To cap things off we sprung for a large sized roomette on the train on the way home. It seated four and had its own shower (in a separate room to the left in the photo). It was more than twice the size (and cost!) of the roomette we usually use and was very comfy:

I asked Kristin if she had fun on her birthday trip and she said: “Yes, I ate bought and saw many wonderful things!” 🙂

Robot Claw