Getting Personal

Some of the things people have asked me to write as a personal inscription on a book or print purchased from my Studio Store:

“To Steve- Thanks for saving my life in the war.”

“For Chris- We’ll always have that one time at Comic-Con…”

“To my birthday girl Sam, I love you and am so proud of you!”

“Dave, You’ll never be as good as me but don’t give up trying!”

“To my best friend Amy!”

“To Darrin- The greatest caricaturist to ever set pen to paper.“

“John- Fuck off, mate!“

Obviously these and many other similar ones necessitate my emailing the customer and telling them I can’t write what they are asking me to write. Sometimes people are just being funny, but sometimes I think they don’t understand that these are literally seen as being my words as my signature is under them. Since I didn’t, and in most cases wouldn’t, ever say these things I have to refuse to write them. Instead I just write a generic “Stay MAD!” or some such.

I have always gotten these sorts of things occasionally, but I recently have seen a run of “sorry, I can’t write that” requests that have caused me to go through and add more detailed instructions to the “Personalization” part of items in my Studio Store, explaining how what I write should be read as from me, not them.

The inscription on the image above is obviously a gag, but that’s actually what I prefer people to ask for when they want more than a “To Bill” inscription in a book or on a print. I’ll come up with something in my own words that is appropriate.

“To Becky- You have a sweet ass!” is not appropriate, even if Becky does.