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"Why do you buy animation art?"
A word about the real value of animation art
This article is about challenging your perceptions,
which I find to be very healtly. When it's about something you cherish
it can be personally threatening. In this case "don't kill the messenger,"
please don't email me on this one.
Why did you buy your last piece of animation
art? Did you like it? Was it so cheap that you couldn't pass it up? What's
in your collection now? Do you have a entire collection of pieces that
you bought on ebay that you now ask yourself-"Why did I buy that?"
As a dealer of animation art I am often tasked
by collectors who zealously seek out any cel that is cheap. Cheap in price
is what they want. They gleefully tell me how they have 50 cels that they
purchased for a total of $250. My response to them is "So what, you have
an entire collection of junk, crap or just plain shit!"
The value of art is not what you paid for it but
what it does for you ...emotionally. How does it make you feel? Does it
bring you back to a point in life that makes you fell good? Does the piece
transcends time for you? These are the effects that the art of
collecting art should bring to you. In doing so, do we abandon
the economics of purchasing art...........No. They're totally separate
considerations requiring you to perceive the value of the piece in two
different parts of your brain.
Tips: The Art of Collection Art
My some 15+ years of buying and selling animation
has given me a little bit of insight on this subject. I suggest you think
about your collection. Not a single piece but what you want hanging on
your walls for 5 years or more. Discover what you really like about
animation art, the characters, the studios. Ask yourself what your
collection will say about you?
After you have done that, fill that collection with the pieces that answers
those questions for you. Pay what you need to pay. I myself
would pay more then I should for a piece that meant something to me then
a piece that meant nothing, but was at a bargain price. Your satisfaction
will always be there for a resonating piece that was more expensive.
That cheap piece of crap will always be a cheap piece of crap and every
time you look at it you'll be reminded of that fact and you'll grow to
hate that piece and how it makes you feel.
Don't go for the cheap, go for what makes you
feel the way you want to feel.
Mayor of Tooncity
'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah'on
Home
Video? The Odds Are . . . Zip!
The
recent news about the International release of "Pearl Harbor" is bad news
for anyone hoping for a video release of "Song of the South."
According to the trade paper Variety, the line "a few less dirty Japs"
in the U.S. version was toned down to "a few less Japs" for the Japanese
release in July. Kate Beckinsale's final voice-over that declares "World
War II changed the course of history for us" reads ". . . for Americans"
in the international version. And this is a movie where the World War II-era
anti Asian and anti German sentiment was already watered down.
If the Walt Disney Co., which is releasing "Pearl Harbor" through its Touchstone
Pictures division, is nervous about offending the Japanese, it's a sure
bet the Mouse Factory is not going to upset African American audiences
with a "Song of the South" re-release. That 1946
animation/live action hybrid, based on Joel Chandler Harris' "Uncle Remus"
stories, is the only one of Disney's so-called "classic" movies yet to
be seen on home video in the United States. When Disney announced in 1999
that it would re-release many of its classics, "Song of the South" was
conspicuously absent from the list. What's wrong
with "Song of the South"? Nothing, if you ask the loyal fans who whistle
"Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" and remember the movie fondly from the last time they
saw it -- which, unless they have a bootleg copy from its European or Asian
video releases, was in its last U.S. theatrical run in 1986.
Christian Willis, who operates a Web site for the movie's fans (songofthesouth.net),
calls it "one of Walt Disney's finest, combining a life-like drama with
fanciful tales and weaving them into one seamless gem."
Uncle Remus' stories are entertaining cartoons, and Brier Rabbit, Brier
Bear and Brier Fox are enduring characters -- still featured at Disneyland's
Splash Mountain ride. It's the movie's live action framing story, about
Uncle Remus (James Baskett) befriending a sad white boy named Johnny (Bobby
Driscoll), that smacks of racism. Patricia A. Turner,
a folklorist and professor at the University of California Davis, wrote
that while Harris set his stories in post slavery Georgia, "Disney's version
seems to take place during a surreal time when blacks lived on slave quarters
on a plantation, worked diligently for no visible reward and considered
Atlanta a viable place for an old black man to set out for."
Further, Turner pointed to Remus' relationship with Johnny and with Toby,
a black child, and noted, "Blacks on the plantation are seen as willingly
subservient to the whites to the extent that they overlook the needs of
their own children." Complaints about racism in
bygone cartoons are not uncommon. When it re-released "Fantasia," Disney
cropped out stereotyped African Americans from the "Pastoral" sequence.
The
Cartoon Network, under orders from corporate masters AOL Time Warner, omitted
12 Bugs Bunny cartoons from its "June Bugs" marathon this weekend because
of stereotypes. (In one, Bugs distracts a black rabbit hunter with a pair
of dice; in another, he refers to a caricatured Eskimo as "a big baboon.")
In Bugs' first feature film, 1996's "Space Jam," the one Looney Tunes character
not on Michael Jordan's team was Speedy Gonzales, a character offensive
to many Latinos. "Cartoons really go for the jugular,"
said Brian Patrick, chairman of the University of Utah's film department.
"It's not just stereotypic, but there's exaggeration to the nth degree.
And that's what offends people -- they really go too far."
(Full disclosure: My wife, a film major at the U., is enrolled in Patrick's
16 mm film production class.)
Patrick teaches an animation history course at the U., and one cartoon
he shows is "Scrub Me Mama With a Boogie Beat." This astoundingly racist
1941 short, produced by Woody Woodpecker creator Walter Lantz, shows the
slowpoke black residents of Lazy Town cleaning themselves up at the behest
of a gorgeous light skinned woman. "I'm always
hesitant to show it," Patrick said. "I'm not really trying to offend anybody,
but still I have people walk out. . . . [But] these old films teach us
a lot about what our culture was like decades ago."
Patrick understands Disney's and AOL Time Warner's motives for disassociating
themselves from their less-than-sensitive old films. "It makes good business
sense not to offend people," he said. "They own those films, and it makes
no sense for them to stick their necks out." Too
bad. I only saw "Song of the South" in its 1972 re-release, when I was
7, and I'm curious to judge the movie's offensiveness for myself. I do
have an alternative: A friend of mine has an import laser disc. From Japan. |
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Where
did it all go so wrong for Porky Pig? |
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Porky's rise to stardom was meteoric, but his success was always tagged
to others. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Chuck Jones and others all took credit
for the laughs at Termite Terrace but it was Porky who remained true to
himself while others gloried in their fame.
Porky, without out a "hit" since he left the WB back in the 60s, has been
searching, desperately for new challenges for the last 40 years. There
have been his well documented "beef's" with Farmer John Sausages (makers
of fine pork products in the Los Angeles area). As a member of PeTA (Porkers
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), he's been arrested several times
for extreme violence at PeTA rallies.
And now, the incident that came last week. Porky, after getting all hopped-up
on twizzle-sticks and Coca-Cola, robbed a dry-cleaning store in Las Vegas.
The store worker was quoted as saying "I knew it was him by his curley-tail."
While another eyewitness said "It was his stammer that gave him away,
that and that angry look on his face, it's something that I'll never forget,
that angry pig!" Yet Mr. Pig sounded repentant after his apprehension via
the Las Vegas Humane Society. Mr. Pig said "I'm sorry, it's just that I'm
a toon who can't find work, I feel like Gary Coleman, or something." Mr.
Pig will be arraigned this week, he remains in jail until his bail can
be set. |
The
10 pieces of Animation
Art You should
NEVER
BUY! |
1) Lion
King cast of Characters sericels from the Lion King Premiere program.
These pieces are really bad. Only Newbies to Animation Art collecting buy
these pieces. But they are always sorry for doing so. They claim to be
sericels but they're just a really cheap print on a piece of plastic.
2)
Any Cel from a Disney educational Shorts. These cels are mostly copies
from 16 mm filmstrips, from a Non-Disney production. Very low in
quality and they have no real long term value. These are mostly Winnie
the Pooh images. If you're going to buy a "Winnie the Pooh" piece, get
one that has a studio seal in the corner from the "New Adventures" circa
1988 or better yet, get one from one of the four original Featurettes starting
in 1966, which is one of Walt's last animation projects.
3)
1980s Disney production cels of Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, baby Mickey
and Dumbo. These are commercials cels NOT done by Disney and are extremely
poor in quality. They have no seals and have no real long term value.
4) Any Winnie the Pooh
cels from "Seasons". This a not a Disney production. The characters
are drawn OFF model, which means they don't look right--they have a strange
look to the characters. Nobody buys these pieces but suckers.
5) Teenage
Ninja Turtle cels- These pieces have a sordid past. The originals were
distributed to "Toys R US" and sold for $100s. The distributor went out
of business, so 1000s of cels were dumped on the market for pennies on
the dollars. Most people were stuck with cels that were worthless because
of the sheer volume of piece that were on the market
6)
Jetson cels after the 1970s. There were only 19 Jetson episodes ever made
and those were in the early 60's. The next lot of Jetson pieces are in
the early 80s. These have Xeroxed ink lines instead of the a hand inked
one on the 60s. these are worth far less then the original ones.
7)
Beware of those Marc Davis signed pieces on ebay.
99% of them are fakes. Here at Tooncity we do represent signed Marc
Davis pieces but we actual witnessed his signing these pieces. Most of
these guys on ebay are Fly-By-Nighters with NO HISTORY in the BUSINESS.
8) Cels
claiming to be from a Donald Duck Epcot movie short called "Careers" these
pieces are highly questionable.
9)
Cels purchased on CRUISE Ships. A lot of phony pieces have been showing
up on these Cruise ship AUCTIONs. The Operators don't care because
once you're off the boat they'll never see you again.
10)
Hanna Barbera Model cels. There's a guy on ebay who's selling model cels
that have been copied right out of a book on animation art. It's a great
gig to have these cels painted up for a few bucks and then sell them on
ebay for $100s.
*****In
fact I'd stay away from anything listed as a model cel; the term "model"
really has no meaning these days. The term has been used by some really
rotten animation art dealers to add a "false Perceived value" to a $20
cel. A terrific amount of falsey represent cels are found on ebay.
Now I can't name names but these pieces are "ideally" posed characters
from WB and HB. BECAREFUL, only buy from those who have good standing
for selling authentic artwork. Just because someone has a high feedback
rating on ebay, doesn't mean there art is authentic. It just means they
deliever a item after it was paid for, which is good.
That's
Not All Folks, but this is only a top 10, "Lets be careful out there Folks" |
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More on Grim Natwick- |
He later
worked for UPA Studios. His work on the character of Snow White, however,
will always remain the highlight of his long career and one of the cornerstones
of that films's greatness and lasting power for more than sixty years.
This was hard won, through over eight years of art school training, three
of which were in Vienna. He also contributed one of the film's most
enduring characters: the turtle who is used as a washboard and who seems
never to be in the right place at the right time. |
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