Check out what I got!My first piece of animation!

[Matthew Hunter]

I just won an original cel from the 1967 WB cartoon "Spy Swatter".!If I'm not mistaken, this Daffy/Speedy was the final cartoon of the DePatie-Freleng WB series. Pretty good cartoon too if you like Daffy-Speedy cartoons. Anyway, I won this cel over ebay for 31 bucks and should get it soon, depending on when the seller answers my confirmation. Notice it's just his head looking into the distance...I guess they animated his body separately in this scene. I'll check my copy of the cartoon now and see if I can find the pose, then I'll tell you where it is.
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1061480240&ed=1011307903
-Matthew

[Thad Komorowski]

That's cool, Matthew! I've had a classic sericel by Bob McKimson called "Baseball Bugs" for a few years. It has Bugs Bunny in a baseball uniform, with a bat ready. This sericel uses my favorite Bugs Bunny design ever! I'll get a picture of it some time.




-Thad

[Greg Method]

Congrats, Matthew! I saw that cel on there last night, and thought it was a neat little indication of how the 1960's cartoons were animated.

Since we're talking about animation art on eBay, I did just want to pass around a friendly word of caution that there are one or two eBay sellers who often offer "production cels" of the characters that are in fact badly-traced licensing images on mocked-up backgrounds.

Just everyone be extremely careful when you're bidding on art on eBay. As someone who was fortunate enough to handle and sell the actual animation art in a WB store, I would hate to see someone burned on something that's completely worthless.

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by Greg Method
Congrats, Matthew! I saw that cel on there last night, and thought it was a neat little indication of how the 1960's cartoons were animated.

Since we're talking about animation art on eBay, I did just want to pass around a friendly word of caution that there are one or two eBay sellers who often offer "production cels" of the characters that are in fact badly-traced licensing images on mocked-up backgrounds.

Just everyone be extremely careful when you're bidding on art on eBay. As someone who was fortunate enough to handle and sell the actual animation art in a WB store, I would hate to see someone burned on something that's completely worthless.

Greg Method~

Those are valuable warnings for any potential Ebayer... OR for that matter, a purchaser of any cartoon art anywhere!! If it sounds to good to be true...

Matt's cel purchase is a cute little piece. The gallery he's bought it from (Van Eaton) is known to be quite reputable. Having said that, it must be qualified. Even the best, most reputable galleries/sellers won't always know the exact, precise history and "provenance" of every cel and drawing. Some of these people literally have thousands on hand!! And thus they are guided by their own knowledge and by what they were told by the person from whom they purchased the cartoon art. I apprised one gallery that they had an erroneous description on a drawing, they thanked me for the correction, but failed to change it before two people bid on it. So someone (guess who) emailed the accurate information to both bidders. One bidder dropped out, and the gallery agreed not to force the "winner" to buy the drawing since they had been plainly wrong.

Soooo it pays for a collector to not only know cartoon scenes, but to know what pin registration system was in use (and whether top or bottom) at a particular studio at the time a given cel or drawing was made... There are limits to that though... I bought old, old drawings from MGM's "The Stork's Holiday" with registration holes on the bottom, then found that some drawings from the same toon had holes on the top!!! As far as I've ever found both are absolutely authentic!!! (I even was informed who the animators of one of the scenes was!)...

I'll guarantee that Matt's purchase is a bonafide Format/Warners... 'Cause I own several other drawings and cels (full head and torso though) from the same sequence.

Congrats Matt!!!

[Matthew Hunter]

I did some investigating myself. I checked the seller's other auctions...animation gallery, lots of stuff. Checked their website, included several vintage WB cels, even one or two Leon Schlesinger-signed late 30's pieces. They also had other art from the same short, I bid and lost earlier on another cel from this cartoon, it included the torso and had the original matching drawing too. Incidentally, I checked the cartoon after buying, and yes, I can point out the exact moment this one's from: just as Daffy starts his rocket pack and says "Clear the area! I'm blasting off"!. I think the head may have been drawn separately because his body does not move in this scene, so that's actually pretty practical...why draw the body dozens of times when only the head is moving in that scene?

I also bid last night on something interesting from the same seller. I'm still the high bidder at $9.99, certainly a good price for what it is. Check it out: the original (well, xerox copy, presumably and animator's reference) storyboard from "The Music Mice-Tro". The 'may or may not be complete' thing is a little iffy, but for ten bucks I won't complain. It's still interesting.

Yes, I have seen those so-called 'production cels' with marketing poses...I can tell those. There's one I saw recently with the Road Runner, and there have been some others that look a little too much like the WB clipart on merchandise. I don't even pay attention to who's selling that stuff, I just ignore it. Most animation art, to me, is too expensive, but when I see a bargain like the one I bought, I look into it.
-Matthew

[Emmanuel Cruz]

There was a production cel I saw on Ebay from the redrawn version of "Get Rich Quick, Porky." It was nice, but it had a little chip in the painting. Here's the picture.

http://imagehost.auctionwatch.com/bin/imageserver.x/00000000/gmoran2316/porkypointscel.jpg

[Matthew Hunter]

heheheh...look at the bottom half of Porky...they didn't bother painting legs!. I have seen a couple of redrawn cels...but in all fairness, who wants a cel from that junk?
-Matthew

[Tintin]

Ben au moins c'est un peu plus vive cette image là. N'est-ce pas? :cool:

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by Matthew Hunter
heheheh...look at the bottom half of Porky...they didn't bother painting legs!. I have seen a couple of redrawn cels...but in all fairness, who wants a cel from that junk?
-Matthew

Actually Matt, Porky's legs ARE painted, but not traced, likely there was no image to trace from the rotoscoped image there. (Original animation drawings end identically sans feet or legs). And all though you can't understand it, there are quite a few people who do want cels from the redrawn cartoons, and will sometimes pay quite a lot of cash to get them... NONE of us are EVER going to even SEE, let alone be able to afford any of the original b &w Porky or Daffy cels by Tex, Clampett, or Tashlin or Boop ones by Natwick, Culhane, or Berny Wolf (think in terms of $1000 to $4000). By comparison a redrawn cel from whatever toon will go from $30-$120.

Speaking as a someone trained as an artist, imagine it like this... You can buy an original painting by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, or Matisse, but it will bankrupt you and your whole family and most of your friends. And that is IFFFF you can find someone willing to sell!!! Orrrrr you can buy a print or a handpainted copy for the price of a few CDs. So your choice is not having a bonafide one at all to lighten your soul (and brighten your wall) or having one you can afford ...

The individual redrawn cels are oft-times wonderful images, despite the sum-total of the "animation" being appallingly bad (a true case of the parts being greater than the whole).