Thursday 14 November 2013

Sign Post Part 2

Back here in July I shared with you some of my favourites from my rather huge collection of signed books. Here are a few more that are particularly special to me.

To kick off, some wonderful doodles by comic artist Frank Quitely. Now, if you're not into comics, his name probably won't mean much to you. But, trust me, he's one of the best. That's why he's trusted with drawing titles as iconic as Batman, The Avengers and Judge Dredd. He's also a genuinely lovely guy and when I was attempting to kickstart (in the days before Kickstarter) a new British comics imprint in the late 1990s, he was hugely supportive and even donated front cover art for our first issue. I'm so pleased he's gone on to great things. Here's a bunch of doodles he did on the inside cover of my copy of DC's Batman: The Scottish Connection (Bigger Betty was the name of the publishing company) along with another Bats-related pencil sketch.



Two other artists who were massively influential on me were Willy Rushton and Gary Larson. I was lucky enough to meet Willy before he died. His pen technique and acid wit made him one of my favourite cartoonists of all time. I've never met Gary and probably never will but I do have the next best thing (well, if you don't count owning an original!). An American police colleague knew I was a fan and asked him to sign a copy of his first volume of Far Side cartoons for me. I was ecstatic to receive it.



I have quite a lot of books signed by comedians - I'm lucky that my work means that I meet a lot of comedians -many of them, sadly no longer with us. I have been privileged to meet people like Ronnie Barker, Sir Norman Wisdom, Eric Sykes and so many more. Here are three of my prized treasures: a signed copy of Kenneth Williams' Acid Drops, a signed copy of my favourite book ever, Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine and the inside back cover of my copy of Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic by the incredible Terry Jones. Thankfully, Terry is still very much with us and this has to be the best author glossy ever.




I'll post some more soon :)

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting some of your signed books and sketches, I enjoyed seeing them. I love collecting signed books and sketches too and I'm an amateur illustrator myself. I saw (and heard) you talk at QED 2013 and I'm hoping to see you this Thursday in Liverpool.

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  2. Great! See you then hopefully! :)

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