Dealers sometimes try to enhance the value of celebrity autographs by framing them alongside compelling visual images, generally photographs or printed matter. So in some way it makes perfect sense that a current AbeBooks listing features an autograph of cartoonist William Steig (1907-2003) that is framed right under the book cover to Shrek! The ogre of the title is, after all, his most widely-known creation.
But there's something misleading about the juxtaposition. Steig's framed signature originates from the collection of Jules Gilbert Moritz on a specially printed card that is hand-dated January of 1945. The children's book Shrek! wasn't published until 1990, some forty-five years after the signature was obtained. Over that time period, Steig's style had undergone a very significant transformation, and he had become a successful children's book author and illustrator in addition to his accomplishments as a cartoonist. Furthermore, the Shrek that fires up the public imagination today is really the animated Shrek of Hollywood, popularized in the series of films from DreamWorks derived from, but hardly synonymous with, Steig's own Shrek. His intimate book creation is charming, but that alone is not why its cover is framed with the author's signature. It is to remind us of the movie franchise which abandoned Steig's small-scale triumph for the sweep and outsize production values of the big screen.
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William Steig
AbeBooks listing accessed November 4, 2021
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Currency conversion
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03795
