The Cost Of Autographs

I attended my first convention some 20 years ago, I kind of didn't realize this until I was thinking about it recently - there will be people who sure as hell have been attending them a lot longer, and back in them days some of the conventions had a star guest - I recall Jeremy Bulloch, Warwick Davis, Paul Blake and (and even then) grumpy Peter Mayhew - and I think with the exception of Mayhew was free (though I believe he was only £5).

Cut to the convention scene now and a free autographs is not very common (though it still exists) and of course there are events (which cost more obviously) that include graphs as part of the ticket price. So the rule of convention now is bring money - sometimes lots - even if you don't buy anything from a stall.

It's incredibly rare that autographs are even as low as £5 now, though in the last year Steve Wickham (Red Dwarf and Doctor Who) charged £5 for 2 autographs and Colin Spaull (Doctor Who) charged me £5 for his, but it's very likely you will be paying at least £10 for a signature even if they was the third Stormtrooper from the right in that one scene (the third Stormtrooper from the right, is a phrase I use regularly, it's not meant as an insult towards bit-part players in the franchise, but rather an example of someone from the Star Wars movie has such a tiny role that it doesn't interest me to get there autograph).

It felt for a while that £25 would be the absolute threshold for signers (which I believe I have only paid once at the time of writing for Ernest Borgnine) and that was for some one who is somewhat of a big name but the price as jumped up it feels more in the last few years and I've seen £35, £45, £75 and even £95, this could be seen as ridiculous but I am off the philosophy - if you don't like the price, don't pay it!

The £95 signer I did see was Sigourney Weaver at the LFCC 2015, whether you agree she is worth it or not you can't argue she is a big name, and if I had been saving I'd pay the £95, obviously only getting the 1 signature (it would have been a choice between Aliens and Ghostbusters - ignoring some other cool roles). I am also of the mindset that you paying for an autograph and experience, so in a lot of ways I can justify to myself paying more for that bigger name.

It's unlikely in my town of Hull, a bunch of big names will not be showing up anytime soon and will unlikely be standing in a barrier hoping that Tom Cruise comes across, and maybe just maybe you can get someones autograph even for a lot less from the likes of eBay (even if you are 100% confident of it been authentic) it's just not the same as much as you would want it to be.

It's hard as a fan to mention the whole convention + charging for autograph thing because as a fan it's not something I feel I need to defend, though I guess I'm totally doing it here, it all seems a bit ridiculous that the cost these conventions have to put in to bring multiple people over and then basically just give it away for free, conventions would be going belly up left and right.

One thing I wanted to mention is the all on-going multi signed pieces, take for example my Doctor Who poster that I am currently working on - when all is said and done I could have spent £100's and will never see it back (even if many of the names where not inscribed to me). Is it a waste of money? It will be to some people but I find a lot of joy in adding names and hoping names from the show pop up at local or affordable to attend conventions.

So I suppose what I'm saying is if you think it's a waste of money this all graphing thing - that's your opinion, there is probably something about you that others will think is a waste of money but if you enjoy it and the experience like I do - just keep doing it.

Stage Door DVD Successes

Okay I had been meaning to post my previous in person successes every Sunday, but I think I will just do them at random for the moment, all these where obtained at the same venue over a course of a couple of years, I haven't included the Extras because they had been done previously and these are not in any order.

Sue Holderness, who played Marlene in Only Fools and Horses was absolutely lovely she not only signed the back cover to the fourth series but also my OFAH book (which I'll get to at a later date)

Ruth Madoc, I recall I met the same night as Holderness and a fair few others - she was another who was absolutely lovely, she signed 2 DVD covers for me, I loved Hi-De-Hi growing up so it was a no-brainer to get this, also Under Milk Wood, is something I studied in school and having grown up in Wales as a link to me, it also serves the memory of the teacher showing this  movie and accidentally showing us the scene of a woman showing her breasts - who turned out to be Ruth Madoc - and she even talked about this scene with me!

These both where actually obtained at 2 different times, the Birds Of A Feather was first and she was nice enough, whilst the second one was the Holderness/Madoc same time (I got a fair few that night) and again was nice enough and seemed surprised that I had Lost Dogs.

Todd Carty was another person who fell into the nice enough category, he did signed 2 things for me this night (an Eastenders book).

I knew David Janson was in 'Allo 'Allo saw took my book but I was IMDB and discovered he was actually the little boy in the Ringo depressed scene in A Hard Day's Night, he seemed thrilled that I knew him from both things. 

I mentioned Gareth Hale already in the Extras section, he signed 3 that night, not the most outgoing but at least he signed. 

Robert Duncan was another cool guy, liked my name, this would look cool with some other names on it.

Andrew Duncan and Sue Devaney where actually doing a stage production of Dinnerladies and left together so it was incredibly easy. Both where extremely friendly (both also signed my Coronation Street book, which both appeared in). Both clearly had a lot of love for Victoria Wood (R.I.P.)

I realize I have no scan of Billy Liar signed by Helen Fraser, so will add that soon.

Star Wars and Me

I thought I'd write this up because I realized I would likely often write the same things at conventions which will be something along the lines of --- they have only been in Star Wars so did not get their autograph --- writing something like this will probably come across to you the (fictional) reader that out of all the science fiction or fantasy genres that I just don't like Star Wars, which is not true, but there is a reasoning I have decided not to chase Star Wars...

I would go as far to say that among my first film memories are of Star Wars, and as a little kid I probably watched the films multiple times a week and like a lot of kids my age collected the Kenner things before growing out of them, but cut to 1993 when I was 11 I decided to buy some Return Of The Jedi comics from a charity shop and from there grew a collection, that I now kept in the packaging, luckily places like car boots as well as a cool local shop helped me built up a collection including some of the rare stuff.

I collected for the next few years getting many bits of stuff related to the original trilogy (which obviously was just the trilogy at the time), until I think one of my cousins in late 95, stole all my weapons and some of my rarer figures. I stumbled on for a few months into 1996 but decided after the set back that I can't have anything nice to sell up my collection.

Even after selling on my collection, I did attend some collector's conventions that had Star Wars guests there, they included Warwick Davies, Paul Blake, Jeremy Bulloch and Peter Mayhew... all of them where lovely except Mayhew who was grumpy even then.

I went to see the special edition re-releases in 1997 and as well as the seeing the prequels (quality be damned) and even saw The Force Awakens on the day of release more recently. I do own the odd bit of signed stuff (like a signed Jeremy Bulloch Return Of The Jedi comic) and even a couple of years ago started and got 3 signatures in a Star Wars Lego Encyclopedia, but I just decided my heart wasn't in and sold it on.

So there you go, I don't look down on the Star Wars franchise, it's just an area I am no covering and still have a lot of affection for it, and honestly if I had the chance of a key character like Harrison Ford or Mark Hamill there is no way I can turn it down.

Hull Horror Fest 2016

I was initially extremely excited for Hull Horror Fest, which was held in my own home city and was actually only a short distance away from my house (which is likely the closest con to me full stop, unless local cons start changing venues to those they used 10+ years ago).I was excited because they had announced among their guests Zach Galligan (Gremlins) and Kelly Jo Minter (A Nightmare On Elm Street 5)... but both of them ended up dropping out for whatever reason, I had multiple items for each to sign (I'd have probably got 3 for Galligan and 2 for Minter) so this was a huge disappointment that honestly did damper my enthusiasm for the event.

To be fair I understand dropping out is part of the all convention thing - because of professional commitments or personal reasons - I understand that - it's just, I don't want to drag a conventions name through the mud but part of me believes since both where American based names, I think they may have run out of money and couldn't afford to bring them over anymore, maybe the reasons are legit for both dropping out (Galligan doing an American con this same weekend after dropping out didn't help matters) but sometimes you can't shake that feeling and they hadn't really seemed in a rush to replace them with somebody British based (there's plenty of great people on the scene that have horror credits), but anyway I had pre-booked my ticket (back when both were still due to appear) and I still wanted to meet Harvey Stephens (Damien in The Omen). But now this event was something I was now less than enthusiastic to attend.

I arrived about 9:50 for the 10 o'clock opening, and here is the most notable thing about this compared to pretty much any other event I've been too - I arrived and I was I was second in line (with nobody behind me). I honestly have never been to any event before and arrived this close to open time and got so close to the front and and was soon let in. With the smaller conventions I like to get a sense of the area, so walked around a couple of times, most of the signers were not completely set up now anyway and found Harvey Stephens desk away from the rest - but he wasn't there yet (he was at the venue), but did ask the woman who was assisting him about price etc. to see if I really wanted to pay it...

So I went near the other guest, sadly most of them where either not of interest to me or had met them before (Jon Campling, who I fear since he's from here will always pop up but will have nothing for him), but I had checked the IMDB pages of them and one of them did stick out, Nathan Head, who has done a lot of British horror work and did appear briefly in the Doctor Who episode "Voyage Of The Damned" (the episode with Kylie in) so he was an obvious add to my ongoing Doctor Who poster (is signature is tiny and my camera is not working so I will not do an image of it, but you should see it in later updates) - he was nice fella who seemed pretty knowledgeable about Doctor Who. I had earmarked £10 for his signature (which is the usual minimum guests have charged) but he was only charging £5 - so I decided to also buy a copy of Theatre Of Fear on DVD and have sign that too (which was only another £5 altogether - I am potentially meeting another actor from that movie so thought it would be worth a buy to see if I like this movie).

After meeting Nathan Head, I could see Harvey Stephens was now at his table (ironically his assistant was not there now), even though he is now almost 46 you could still see in his face that he was little Damien - his assistant was off getting pens (though he had some) and there was no silver, which is what I really needed to get my Chirashi signed. Luckily I felt cheeky another to go and ask Nathan Head if I could borrow his silver pen and we was cool enough to do so, and I Stephens sign my Chirashi. I suppose he was nice enough but I didn't get any warmth from him.

After getting the graphs (wish I could have left with more, but wasn't going to get them from others just for the sake of itt). On one stall I found some old film magazines from the 70's and early 80's and purchased a bunch of them - these are cool just for the movie adverts inside but will make interesting reading. After that I had another look around see if there was anything else around but anything close to interesting me was out of my price range today (even then I probably would of brought elsewhere).

I did end up stopping by the District 13 people who run events such as Hull Comic Con and the upcoming UK Comic Cruise (which I'm very excited for) and talked to the guy who run that for absolutely ages about his convention, other conventions across the country, our favourite shows (we both adore Buffy The Vampire Slayer) and I probably talked to him for like an hour.

There was nothing else keeping me there after the event but bumped into my Auntie and Uncle and their Grandson - they had a great time, though my Auntie kept getting spooked by a zombie who crept up on her and oddly my Uncle doesn't think of the little kid when he thinks of Damien but rather Sam Neill (who played him in the first sequel), so I'm not really sure if he was expecting Sam Neill to be here or not - and they were also about to leave and luckily going my way home, so it was a nice smooth exit.

Overall, I can''t pretend I'm not disappointed by the cancellations, and it worries me the convention wasn't packed out (though the ones there where having a good time) and I sincerely hope it continues because I'd be willing to give it another go next year. It's fair to say it was an underwhelming day.

Extras DVDs

Sunday again, so it's for another update or something else from my in person autograph collection, this time, this time it's 3 DVDs of Extras that I have had signed (which makes up the complete series), what all these also have in common is they where all obtained at stage doors rather then conventions.

The first person I got on the first series of Extras, was Shaun Williamson (best known as Barry), he was the first ever person I met at a stage door, I have to say he was incredibly nice and set the tone for any future person I met a the venue. A few months later Les Dennis (who makes it onto the cover at the very bottom) was appearing at the same venue and I added him to the cover. He seemed friendly enough.

I got Williamson to sign the 2nd series at the same time (I didn't have the Christmas Special at the time, but he did sign a further 2 items for me), perhaps one day I'll add another name to this, could be Robert De Niro or it could be Keith Chegwin!

So after meeting Williamson I did end up buying The Special, Williamson ain't been back since but Gareth Hale (of comedy duo Hale and Pace) did show up and happily signed my cover.