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 🙂

  • Posted in Blog
  • Robert

Fake Steak

  • November 18, 2023

We bought this at a Japanese shop in NYC when we were there back in October:

It’s a candy food kit that looks like a ‘hamburger steak’ (ie. hamburger patty) and egg lunch when made. We’ve made various candy food items in the past, but this one was so unusual we had to get it. It even includes green beans!

The instructions were daunting, since no English version exists. This was a job for the translator! Unlike similar kits they didn’t provide all the necessary equipment (such as measuring spoons) and I was very surprised to see preparation required milk and microwaving and even over an hour of waiting!

This first piece made was the egg, which is peach and orange flavoured. The yolk and white were made separately, and then the entire thing had to set in the fridge for an entire hour. I was only 75% sure I had followed the instructions correctly, so this was a long wait.

While the egg was setting I made the (melon flavoured) beans, which required a special mold. You can see here that the liquid appeared to spread between the molds to make a film, but when we removed them (much later) the beans separated immediately from the flash. They wiggled around like fishing lures, but on the plate (see below) looked just like actual beans.

The steak was the most in-depth portion, requiring milk and mixing and microwaving and a duration of resting before adding the liquid demi-glacé. Once completed it was astonishingly realistic, and looked much more like a meat patty than a chocolate cake.

It was time to assemble the entire dish:

Look at it! It’s amazing. Even in person it looked incredibly realistic, and not just a microwave chocolate cake with gummy egg and beans. Here’s a close up:

It was very sweet, but the cake was chewy and delicious and the fruit tastes were pleasant. Eating the egg was surreal because it looked so much like a real egg – and even felt like one when you cut it with a spoon – but just tasted of fruit jelly 🙂

This was an incredible kit. It worked perfectly and looked even better than we expected. It’s no wonder my reaction so closely mirrored the guy on the box: