Roddenberry.com will soon be selling what it touts to be a limited edition of Michael McMaster's Klingon D-7 blueprints, signed by Michael "Korax" Pataki... and also by Gene Roddenberry. Listing at Roddenberry.com Judging by the close-up photo, these seem to be an older surplus of drawings that were run past Pataki for a recent autograph in the hopes of clearing out the extra stock. Although the listing says that drawings were signed by Roddenberry, I have to wonder if the signature was hand-made back in the day, or if the signature is just a duplicate.
I have a copy of those blueprints that I got from Lincoln Enterprises back in the day, and they are signed by McMaster and Roddenberry in the lower left corner, just as seen in that photo. The latter signature is in a box labeled "APPROVED BY:" in the top left corner with "GENE RODDENBERRY" printed in the lower right. So the Roddenberry signature is part of the original documents.
Korax? Pah! I prefer to think of Michael Pataki for his more timeless roles...as The Cow in Mighty Mouse the New Adventures (1987-89) and as "George Liquor...American!" in Ren & Stimpy.
So the question remains -- do they appear to be hand-signed by Roddenberry, or was it a machine job, as many of the more recent photos have been, for obvious reasons?
^^Umm, the signature is printed in blue ink like the rest of the page, so he didn't individually autograph each copy, if that's what you mean. But I assume he did the original signature by hand on the original sheet that the rest were printed from.
That's basically what I was asking -- whether Roddenberry personally signed these old prints one-by-one back in the day, thus making the $250 price tag a bit less unpalatable.
I'm not buying 'em. I'm mostly content with the FASA plans, which are heavily based on McMaster's drawings.
Hey, I'm just glad they dropped the price of the set layouts from $55.00 to around $12.00. Besides, I've already got both the McMaster plans and the FASA ones, both hardcopy and on the 'puter.