Should artists and writers charge fans for signatures?

This issue seems to come up more after big conventions. And seems to get talked about more as prices for signatures seem to increase yearly. So first off let me say I don't think there is anything wrong with charging for signatures, now should there be a limit on how much someone charges, I'd say yes. I've met plenty of artists that sign for free and there are plenty of big names in the industry that sign for free. Greg Capullo and Scott Synder come to mind right away. I've also had to pay for a lot of signatures. I've paid as much as $30 for a signature, and yes that was from Neal Adams in case you were wondering. Now they have the right to charge whatever they like but I thnik charging more than $10 is too much. How long does it take to sign your name? 10 seconds maybe. To charge more than $10 seems excessive to me even though I've paid more more than that many times. But I wanted the signatures and I paid for them. No one forced me to pay it I chose too.

Now what I don't think is acceptable at all is when an artist will charge more to sign a particular book. I had never even heard of this being done until a friend of mine met Rob Liefeld at New York Comic Con, I'm not a Liefeld fan at all and this is just one of the reasons why. From what I was told he was signing for free for books without Deadpool, if Deadpool was on it then it was $10 and if you wanted your copy of New Mutants 98 signed, that would set you back $30. Now that is sleazy in my opinion. Either charge or don't. Don't pick and choose what books you want to sign for free and what ones you will charge fans for. That doesn't make any sense to me and if I went to have a book signed by a creator and he told one book would cost more than the other I would walk away. Now some guys will have a limit where they will sign the first 5 books for free then maybe a dollar each after that or some guys will ask for a donation to the Hero Initiative, both I think are fine.

Now I also thnik that creators should limit how many books someone gets signed at once. These conventions are more popular than ever and more people than ever are attending. And some creators have very long lines. I don't know about you but I don't want to wait in line for 3 hours to get an autograph. I'd say 10-15 books however many you can fit in one of those BCW Storfolios. Don't be that guy that drops a long box in front of a creator to have them sign 300 books for you while there is a line a mile long behind you. Get in line 10 times if you want but don't get greedy and ruin it for the rest of us.

A lot of the argument against charging is that we have already bought the comic, therefore supporting the creator and their work. Which is sort of true, more so for new books that depend on the sales each month, not so much for old books where creators don't see anything from us buying back issues for our collection.
But in the end I'll pay for a signature if I really want it.

There is also the people that get mad when you sell signed books. Some even claim that creators charge more often now because people are selling the books they are signing. Now I don't sell books I have signed. They are for my personal collection. But if that's what you want to do that's fine. You bought the book and have the right to do what you want with it. And to play off that, a lot of creators who don't charge for signatures will charge for CGC or CBCS witnessed signatures. I personally don't think they should if they normally don't charge but it's their right. I'm not sure why they do that, do they just assume you will flip it and that's why they are charging? I can't be sure.

What do you guys feel about creators charging for signatures? What's the most you're willing to pay?

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