My deficiencies as an Armitage fan

I’ve been amused lately by Natalie’s confession about swathes of Mr. Armitage’s oeuvre that she hasn’t seen, and the resulting discussion of Armitage equipment that she’s going to put in her Armitage shrine. RAFrenzy was talking about this as well, as she not only conceded having spent hundreds of dollars on his work, but also having purchased a region-free DVD player and to top it all off, the absolute corker: a Guy of Gisborne action figure that she can now no longer find.

As I said on Natalie’s blog I don’t think there’s any competition involved here. One of the neat things revealed by the comments is the variety of work that different segments of the fandom consider most vital. The advent of the region-free DVD player was a turning point in my life, too. I am not planning a Richard room (I have a two room apartment and actually would like to downsize), but the top of the TV is a Richard shelf of sorts, since almost the only DVDs I own are of Mr. Armitage’s work. Oh, yeah, and then there’s the glove compartment of my car, which is where the audiobooks live. I’ll admit that I am more likely to buy media than accoutrements — I’d rather have a DVD of his work than a Gisborne key ring — but I don’t think you need to own everything he’s done or even to have seen everything he’s done to be a great fan. I referred briefly yesterday to my perception that a certain sort of fan dogma surrounds Armitage — and a resulting orthodoxy and heresy — but as I have taken the name of a Trinitarian heretic as my blogger alias, you can imagine where I stand on many of those questions.

So, although I don’t feel guilty about this, and although I have all of his audiobooks now and most of the DVDs that document his work, I thought I’d confess today that a key piece of Armitagiana that I don’t have is: an autograph!

Is this bad? Does my failure to have done this reflect a character flaw? A disloyalty to the banner of Armitageworld? Have I missed a vital human experience? Traxy lists requesting an autograph as one way to know you’re a fangrrl, but doesn’t say whether it’s necessary or only sufficient.

It never would occur to me to write to him to obtain his autograph. But I discovered a whole webpage of people who not only did this, they posted pictures of the autograph, the autographed object, and even the envelope on the web. There are discussions of his promptness (he seems unusually prompt to me, frankly. One imagines him spending time doing this every weekend). You can see some of these here. If you click on “view result” you can see a photo, and even discussion of the signature / handwriting.

I think it might be different if I ever actually met him. Then I might ask him in person for an autograph as a souvenir of the experience. Then again, I might not. I usually find that memories are better by themselves, without objects to anchor them.

[The visual above is an autographed photograph of Mr. Armitage donated as a raffle item to the Center for Complementary Care in 2007. For comprehensive directions on requesting an autograph, consult Richard Armitage Online.]

~ by Servetus on August 31, 2010.