Basement X

I'm all for the limiting of items to be signed. Three or five books max. No more whole fucking run bastards with suitcase trolleys!

I'm also in favour of a few more things, but these could be hard to pull off since you're asking to control the way creators interact with their fans. These few more things?


- You estimate a time for how long it takes to sign 3/5 comics per person.

- You put a big sign up everywhere stating the max items per person and as a side note mention that the number can decrease to 1 item as per staff discretion.

- On this sign you also mention that whilst creators love interacting with their fans, out of respect to other people in the queue you don't start telling them your life story.

- Also on this sign you express that artists will only be able to do quick sketches when they are on signing booths. Full artwork only available on comission or at Artist Alley. Anyone else get pissed off at the artist when they eat up everyone elses time doing a sketch during a signing slot?

- You politely ask creators not to tell fans their life stories, if there is a massive queue.

- You periodically count the queue and check this against your estimation and time left in the signing slot.

- You do everyone in a line a favour and tell them if you expect you may need to cut the max item number down. Then eventually you do this if you feel you have to.

- At the end of the signing slot, if there are a small handful of people left, you ask the creator if they wouldn't mind finishing them up in the corner.
- If there's more than a handful left, you ask the creator if they wouldn't mind walking the line and just scribbling out signitures as they walk by. You warn the people in line too that there's no chit-chat during this process.



What do you reckon?
Could some of these ideas work/become best practice. Or are some ideas above asking too much of creators or even fans at times?

I think a lot of these work when the signing is at a major booth, such as the Image, Marvel, DC, etc booths. If it's at a creator's own booth or in Artist Alley a lot of those things would be hard to manage, though AA can get very clogged as well as it was at C2E2 for some of the major signings they had in AA. I think the one that would work well in an AA situation would be the number of books to sign but leave that up to the creator since it's their own booth and how long they want to be there.

Those guidelines would work most ideally in a major distributor or company's booth, or a major convention booth, but not all may work in Artist Alley. I think depending on the size of the con they could go either way.

You definitely don't want to limit fan-creator interaction to a simple "hi-bye" kind of thing, but yes the guy in front of you talking to the creator for 20 minutes and then the line getting cut right then and there because times up is a horrible thing. So you have to watch out for things like that.

Hell, I felt bad asking Jason Aaron one question at C2E2 because the line behind me was huge so I asked it on the run and he politely gave me a simple answer as he handed my book back and we both didn't waste time hashing things out.

Stocky Boy wrote:I'm all for the limiting of items to be signed. Three or five books max. No more whole fucking run bastards with suitcase trolleys!

I assume you're referring to your mustached friend with the pony tail who shows up at every con with his entire collection in tow (FYI he was at NYCC11 as well in case you were wondering).

I've noticed that most people who bring more than several books to be signed at once, like stacks and stacks of books usually work for a comic book shop. They're getting their books signed so they can ratchet up the price when they sell them. Nothing wrong with that beyond the fact that it holds up the line for forty minutes and they're identifiable by the ear pieces they wear and constantly giving and receiving instructions on where to be next.


I think most of those practices would work except the one where you inform creators on how long they can interact with their fans. Checking & re-checking the line, giving time & title estimates as well as a sketching rule all seem reasonable enough.

Tragic Angelus wrote:
Hell, I felt bad asking Jason Aaron one question at C2E2 because the line behind me was huge so I asked it on the run and he politely gave me a simple answer as he handed my book back and we both didn't waste time hashing things out.

Yeah, Jason Aaron is kind of a tool.