Animation Art Auction

Pinocchio concept art by Gustav Tenggren

Milt Kahl thumbnails from The Rescuers

Back in the '90s, animation art was all the rage. Sotheby's and Christie's both staged multiple auctions that featured animation art from the 1930s to the present. Animation art is no longer as prominent for a variety of reasons. The current economy doesn't leave people with a lot of extra money to spend but probably more important is the fact that digital films don't generate much art on paper or canvas. The art that is created, being digital, is not one of a kind. It can be copied endlessly with no loss of quality, which destroys the whole concept of owning an original.

Profiles in History will be having an auction featuring much animation art on May 14. Even if you're not in a position to buy, you might be interested in a copy of the catalog, which can be downloaded for free. Hans Perk has been talking about some of this art and publishing better reproductions than are in the catalog. You can see his posts here.

Besides Disney art, the auction also features work from Warner Bros, Fleischer, MGM, Lantz, Mintz, Iwerks, Hanna-Barbera, UPA and Bill Melendez. In addition to drawings, cels and background paintings, there are also posters, maquettes, autographs and correspondence. The back of the catalog contains various memorabilia from live action films but starting at page 325 is material from The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and The Corpse Bride.

The animation portion of this is a very nice collection and the equivalent of many animation art books that cost significant amounts of money. Grab your free copy while you can.

Pecos Bill Mosaic

Steven Hartley has started to post a mosaic of the "Pecos Bill" sequence from Melody Time, based on documents provided by Hans Perk.

Various Linkages

The first issue of Dean Yeagle's comic book version of Roald Dahl's Gremlins, pictured at left, will hit the comic shops on March 5.

In this Variety article, Brad Bird talks about writing animation and live action as well as naming some of his storytelling heroes.

In the January issue of Flip, Steve Moore editorializes about the current state of the industry:

"Since the animation boom of the 1990's, an animation industry culture has developed that permeates mainstream animation in the world today. The artists making the films all know each other, move in the same social circles, know the same films, music, and pop culture trivia. The result has been a cross pollination of ideas, where artists of today plagiarize each others' plagiarization of the past. The result is, the audience gets a third hand experience. The animated character are even less genuine, less alive. The characters in one film move and speak and behave like characters in the other films. They express humor, love, anger, and angst all the same way. The indusrty-at-large has become homogenized. Creatively in-bred."

The same page has some letters from people who studied under Eric Larsen at Disney, including this quote from Larsen: "Animate in your head first, then draw it next." Those letters are in response to an earlier article by Dan Jeup about his experiences learning from Larsen.

Animated News has the release dates for seven animated features coming in 2008.

Hans Perk has completed posting the animation drafts for Disney's Alice in Wonderland.

Musician David Byrne talks about different business models evolving in his industry. While music and animation are very different businesses, it's always encouraging to hear that there are ways around corporate ownership and control of creative work.

Along the same lines, Andrew O'Hehir of Salon interviews independent film maker John Sayles about his latest project Honeydripper.

"You know, it would be great to just be an artist and sit back and make these little creations and have somebody else figure out how to get people to see them. But you're probably not going to get to do that. You're probably going to have to be a marketer, a showman, whatever. It's part of the job."