I recently ran across a contest where ZUG readers where challenged to place fancy stickers that said, "Signed By Author," on copies of Prank The Monkey. The contest had over two hundred people who actually signed up for these strange and unusual contest, which was designed by John Hargrave, but it intrigued me so that I had to discover the results and share them with everyone.



Apparently, the contest was issued to assist John Hargrave, who was the inventor of Prank The Monkey with signing his books so that he would not have to participate in a strenuous world tour. For this strange and unusually contest two hundred contest where each mailed stickers containing the signatures of John Hargrave and the "Signed By Author" stickers as well. The main purpose of this contest was basically for these individuals to go into their local retail book stores, then to secretly attach both stickers to as many copies of Prank The Monkey as possible.

Some of the individuals were really original with there pranks in that they forged fake signatures in many other books, which included signatures of Martha Stewart, Hillary Clinton, Dr. Phil, and God. To win this comical contest the first five individuals that sent in a photograph of a legitimate signed copy of the Prank The Monkey would win. The very first individual that got there photograph in was Gilbert Seise, III.

The other four contestants personalized books with their own unique autographs were Jules Su, Tim Sonderman, Jaron, and Chickens. One contestant winner decided to sign the autograph of Barbara Streisand to Alphabet Of Manliness, which was written by Maddox. Then another signed away the name of Jerry Farewell, but all in all the autographs with in the contest included such famous notaries as Hitler, Reagan, George Bush, and many more.

Other interesting characteristics concerning autographs is that generally it refers to signature of the author of a published document, short story, or novel. Under the United States copyright law autographs can be protected, but not necessarily the names itself. It is said that the writing style of every individual will change throughout their lifespan. With this in mind, an individual who is twenty can write they name on a piece of paper, then exactly ten years later write their name on that same piece of paper again. There will be a slight difference, but then ten years later write their name one more time, and there will be a very noticeable difference between the first signature and the last.

Levels that may affect the signatures of individuals may include the advancement or lack of education, their health, their environment, and even possible society. If an individual suffers from a disease such as Parkinson, which is when the shakes uncontrollably at times, then that individuals autograph will definitely be different from the time prior to developing this disease to present. A very famous actor, Michael J. Fox, unfortunately suffers from this disease as well as famous boxing great, Muhammad Ali.