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Signatures on OA.

Started by Aronstg,

53 posts in this topic

Aronstg

Aronstg

Posted
Posted

What do you all feel about signatures on your original art? If it is a commission do you like a signature incorporated with the drawing or do you want it off to the side? What about signatures on panel pages, splashes and covers?

 

Just curious to hear everyone's preferences on this.

 

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Brian Peck

Brian Peck

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For commissions I do not mind signatures in the artwork since its doe at the time of the artwork. As for panel panels, splashes and covers I prefer them outside of the artwork. I especially hate having them in the panels. When I had Stan Lee sign my X-Men #8 panel page and Daredevil #47 cover I had the artwork inside of a mylar except the top part outside of the artwork.

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AKA Rick

AKA Rick

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For published art autographs should be located in the outer margins in pencil, then the "new/next" owner can always erase it if they think aesthetically it's distracting.

 

For commissions, the signature should actually be done in the same ink as the rendering and close to the figure, since it is sort of the credits and substantiation of the artist who drew it and in fact, commissions without signatures holds less value in the marketplace since it can be a rendering by an imitator artist. Since commissions are custom and for the most part unknown, if the piece isn't signed, it may go down in the history books as "unknown" or with questionable credibility as well. I'm not sure if that answers the "incorporating" where the signature becomes part of the art or integrated into the aesthetics or not as the question.

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Doc McCoy

Doc McCoy

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I agree with Rick here, though I'm fine if a signature on a published piece is done in ink, as long as it is outside the boundaries of a published piece. An acquantince recently had a page signed by Stan Lee that was done right inside the panel of a beautiful half-splash and it really takes away from the art in my opinion.

 

As for commissions, I think it's very cool when an artist incorporates their signature inside the art, that's always fun. But again, as Rick mentioned, the signatures should always be done in the same medium as the piece. There's nothing worse than seeing a beautiful piece done in pen & ink or water color scrawled on with sharpie for the signature. 2c

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delekkerste

delekkerste

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For commissions I do not mind signatures in the artwork since its doe at the time of the artwork. As for panel panels, splashes and covers I prefer them outside of the artwork. I especially hate having them in the panels.

 

You mean you don't like the artist to sign a cover, in the image area in thick, red Sharpie? hm:eek:

 

(Note: Me and Brian witnessed this happen recently...it was like watching a car crash happen right before our eyes and we were powerless to stop it).

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Eric Seffinga

Eric Seffinga

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A little story...

 

When I first started collecting art in the 90s, I brought a Rom panel page with me to a Sal Buscema signing at a local shop. I dutifully waited in line, and when it was my turn I slipped the page out of the sleeve an handed it to him. Sal smiled, took the page and among all the pens and pencils on the table in front of him, grabbed the fattest gnarliest sharpie I've ever seen.

 

This happened in real time for everyone else, but for me it was the Quicksilver moment in the XMen movie, as time slowed down and I watched in horror for hours as he proceeded to sign it as large as it would fit, right in the only white space of centermost panel on the page.

 

It was an early learning moment for me on a relatively cheap page, which I kept in the closet for a number of years, but eventually sold, as I couldn't stand looking at that damn signature. Which was exactly where my eyes went every time I looked at the page.

 

In the last couple decades I've seen much worse, but it never went down like that for me again, once I was wise to what could happen.

 

 

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chrisco37

chrisco37

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For commissions I do not mind signatures in the artwork since its doe at the time of the artwork. As for panel panels, splashes and covers I prefer them outside of the artwork. I especially hate having them in the panels.

 

You mean you don't like the artist to sign a cover, in the image area in thick, red Sharpie? hm:eek:

 

(Note: Me and Brian witnessed this happen recently...it was like watching a car crash happen right before our eyes and we were powerless to stop it).

 

:eek: I think I've seen McSpidey sigs in red sharpie on OA before.

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Meeley Man

Meeley Man

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What do you all feel about signatures on your original art? If it is a commission do you like a signature incorporated with the drawing or do you want it off to the side? What about signatures on panel pages, splashes and covers?

 

Just curious to hear everyone's preferences on this.

 

On a commission, I just have them incorporate it into the piece, but I don't generally care for personalizations. For published work, I like it in a margins outside of the art (like others have said) and am totally against personalizations on them.

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alxjhnsn

alxjhnsn

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A couple of items come up pretty on this topic:

 

  • Signature placement
    • The signature should be confined to the margin and not on the art.
    • To ensure proper placement, it's a good idea to have the page in a plastic bag with a hole at the spot for the signature and a big red arrow pointing at the opening. Most won't remove the piece and you are more likely to get it where you want it.

    [*] Dedications

    • Dedications will generally lower the value of the piece especially for unpublished art.
    • This is the opposite of author signatures in a book which per Antiques Roadshow increase the value. Odd.

    [*] Signing implement

 

I prefer in person if I can make it happen as I also like to get a picture of the art and the artist if I can.

 

Hope this helps.

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Ironmandrd

Ironmandrd

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Posted
A couple of items come up pretty on this topic:

 

  • Signature placement
    • The signature should be confined to the margin and not on the art.
    • To ensure proper placement, it's a good idea to have the page in a plastic bag with a hole at the spot for the signature and a big red arrow pointing at the opening. Most won't remove the piece and you are more likely to get it where you want it.

    [*] Dedications

    • Dedications will generally lower the value of the piece especially for unpublished art.
    • This is the opposite of author signatures in a book which per Antiques Roadshow increase the value. Odd.

    [*] Signing implement

 

I prefer in person if I can make it happen as I also like to get a picture of the art and the artist if I can.

 

Hope this helps.

 

No need to add to the good advice that everyone is giving (and I have my own early horror stories of George Perez and Sal Buscema signing inside a panel). And not to derail/sidetrack but I was very surprised about the above Antiques Roadshow view. What books are those? Comic books? Regular hard covers or paperbacks?

 

I have collected a lot of signed first editions over the years (60s-present Science Fiction) and it is rare that a dedication increases value or doesn't lower value. Off the top of my head I can think of a few categories where the dedication doesn't impact negatively, but those are special cases and in the minority -- dedication to a famous person or industry insider, an author who's signed books are so super-rare that any signature is valuable whether it's a dedication or not, or books that are so old that it doesn't matter and/or the dedication just adds to the historical context.

 

To be clear, my definition of a dedication (sometimes called an inscription) is one where the recipient is named.

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vodou

vodou

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Posted

 

No need to add to the good advice that everyone is giving (and I have my own early horror stories of George Perez and Sal Buscema signing inside a panel). And not to derail/sidetrack but I was very surprised about the above Antiques Roadshow view. What books are those? Comic books? Regular hard covers or paperbacks?

 

I agree with Barry.

 

Is "Flat Signed" Better?

 

This (or a variant of it) is probably the most often asked question I hear. What I'm talking about is, of course, whether it is better to buy a book (or get it autographed by the author) with just a signature alone or whether it is better to have it with a personalized inscription.

 

With modern books by living authors, the popular wisdom states that it is better to have a "flat" (I hate that term) signed book — that is to say, a "stand-alone" signature, not a book with an inscription to an "unknown" person. For example, if I wrote a book, would you like me to sign it for you: "For (your first name here) —Hope you like it, Barry R. Levin," or just "Barry R. Levin." Many dealers will tell you that it is easier to resell your modern signed books if they are just "flat" signed. "No one named 'Bill,'" they will say, "wants a book signed 'For Bob.'"

 

Is this bit of popular wisdom true, are flat signed books better? Well, yes and no.

 

The very best autograph dealers and authorities will tell you quite candidly that, in many cases, "a stand-alone" (or "flat," if you must) signature in a modern book can be all but impossible to authenticate. Yes, he or she can rule out most fakes, but still can only tell you most of the time that a modern stand-alone signature "looks good," not that it is 100% authentic if the piece has no provenance. A signature is almost (and in some languages in reality) a pictograph or symbol that represents a person's name, a stylized form of -script often unlike the person's normal handwriting. It is possible with practice to copy that symbol. Yes, it helps if you know something about the mechanics of handwriting, and also of pens, inks, papers, etc., but a fair number of people can do a passable job of copying a given person's signature. It is extremely difficult, however, to copy a person's -script, or handwriting in general. (I am not going to give you a primer here on the whys and wherefores of this for obvious reasons). Take my word for it, that is one of the reasons why the names of the handful of great forgers that have been caught are so well remembered — it is a true (if despicable) art form.

 

For instance, I talked to an important collector of Stephen King the other day. He told me a very interesting story. He bought a copy of a proof for a new Stephen King novel, over the internet. The copy was described as being flat signed by the author. When the proof came, it was not signed. He emailed the seller, and the seller told him to send it back and he would send him a signed copy. Suspicious, the collector took a soft lead pencil and put a very small mark on a given page and sent the proof back. A week went by, and a signed copy of the proof was delivered to him. He looked at the signature (one that he is very familiar with) and it "looked good." He opened the proof to the page on which he had placed his mark on the copy that he had sent back, and lo and behold there is his mark. Now the collector knew that King was on vacation that week, and knew it was not possible for the seller to have gotten this particular copy signed in the time allotted — so even if the signature "looked good," it had to be a forgery.

 

Another collector sent me a scan of a very popular British author's stand-alone autograph. Once again, the "signed" book had been purchased on the internet. She wanted to know if the signature was authentic. Now, it is almost impossible to truly authenticate an autograph from a scan and with no provenance, and it is not a free service we normally have time to render. Saying that, I did have time that day to look at the scan, so I did. This author's signature is one that is a little hard to get in this country, mostly because of the overwhelming demand at the moment. It is also, unfortunately, a particularly easy autograph to forge. I sent the collector an emailed note to that effect, along with an example I had of a signature known to be authentic. My advice was, and is, to only buy autograph material from an expert, one with proper credentials, especially flat or stand-alone examples of signatures.

 

In the last few years, I have seen a rise in the number of forged autographs of science fiction, fantasy, and horror authors, including Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Stephen King, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and even those of Ray Bradbury, whose signature is the most common authentic autograph in the field.

 

My point in telling you all of this is simply to point out that the more words on your autographed items, the better! The number of people who can fool an autograph expert drops in direct proportion to the number of words on the page. If you are buying a stand-alone or flat signed book, the provenance for the piece can be as important as the honesty and knowledge of the seller.

 

It is also important to note that it is always a good idea, when having a book signed for you by an author, to have the author date the signature, especially if the book is being signed in the year, or, better yet, the month and year of publication. Books so signed are very desirable to collectors. Also, because the handwriting of authors often change over time, sometimes dramatically, the dating of the signature becomes doubly important. Ray Bradbury and Clark Ashton Smith are two notable examples of striking signature changes that come to mind.

 

None of us will live forever; no one is immortal. Collectors are one of the greatest conservators of our cultural heritage. The signed books we buy or have autographed for us today will one day bear the signature of a deceased author. How will people in the future know for sure that a particular signature is authentic? Some collectors put a note in their signed books (hopefully on acid-free paper) saying that they got the book signed at such and such a time and place. This is harmless and can be used as provenance to a point, but in the future it will be only as good as the reputation of the individual collector who wrote it. If he is not of note, it may prove to be almost as good in the future as a letter of authentication from a dishonest dealer or forger. No, the best measure of an item's authenticity is that which is integral and internal. Few if any collectors today care if Jules Verne or H. G. Wells inscribed a book to an unknown person. Just the opposite, a long inscription is preferred. Why is that true? Because of course these authors are now no longer signing anything, and it is easier to authenticate an inscribed and signed copy, so the more words from the master's hand, the better. Who knows, maybe in a hundred years, Ray Bradbury's signature may be worth something, and a book with a long inscription and maybe one of his drawings — priceless?

 

At this point, it would be wise to point out that even those collectors who do not like personalized inscriptions in their modern books will eagerly buy the following types of inscribed books:

 

ASSOCIATION COPY: An inscribed or signed book that once belonged to someone the author knew or to someone very well known (i.e., another author, a movie star, a former president, etc.).

DEDICATION COPY (sometimes called "THE COPY"): The copy inscribed by the author to the person or persons to whom the book is dedicated.

PRESENTATION COPY: A copy of a book given by the author as a gift to the recipient, usually inscribed and often dated very near the time of publication. (NOTE: not a copy signed by the author at the request of the autograph's recipient.)

INSCRIBED SENTIMENT: A copy of a book that is inscribed without being personalized. An example would be a copy of my imaginary book inscribed, "This is my favorite of all of my books. Barry R. Levin," or, "With my warmest regards, Barry R Levin." My favorite inscription of this type was on a book I once owned, signed by the author with the note, "This is the first copy of this book I ever signed." The "inscribed sentiment" may be the best of all worlds, for the collector of modern signed first editions by living authors.

 

So now you know why I have answered the question of "Is flat signed best?" with the answer, "Yes and no." For the purpose of resale in the lifetime of the author — "Yes," if there is no question of authenticity; and, "No," because an inscription makes it far easier to authenticate the handwriting of the author, and ipso facto, the signature, and thus the dictum applies, "The more words from the master's hand, the better."

 

So, how would you like me to sign my next imaginary book for you?

 

Barry R. Levin

 

from: http://www.raresf.com/bnews.html#signed

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alxjhnsn

alxjhnsn

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And not to derail/sidetrack but I was very surprised about the above Antiques Roadshow view. What books are those? Comic books? Regular hard covers or paperbacks?

 

I share your puzzlement. None the less, someone had a bunch of books (chapter books as my kids used to say; not comics) and the appraiser said that the dedication (To xxx From yyy) was more valuable. I thought it was odd then and think it's odd now, but ...

 

He did mention that it showed an actual connection to the author as opposed (I guess) to pre-signed books left at a book store. That is, it's proof that the recipient had med the author. Still, I don't know ....

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