What a week. I never realized just how insane an office move could be. Even though the physical aspect is over, the residual ripples are still keeping me swamped. I do have to say that the step up in quality in the new office is great. 20 inch flat screen monitors on adjustable arms, hidden PC towers under the desks, so much better than the ancient set up we had before. Now if I can just find the time to blog. BLARGH!

Anyway, the most exciting thing going on outside of crazy work moves is the coming Halloween season. I’m already seeing signs for the seasonal stores popping up, and Party City has already started rolling out its spread. I can’t wait to see what the Target displays look like this year, as well as beginning the hunt for interesting goodies. Can’t wait.

In the interim here’s the first of a handful of Bravestarr animation cels from around 1987. I figured I should begin with the show’s namesake, Marshall Bravestarr himself…



Bravestarr makes the end of the 80s cartoon era, at least in terms of shows that I remember fondly as a kid. For some reason it seemed like interesting shows dried up for a couple years as there didn’t seem to be that many shows that really entertained me. Of course this was also around the time that got into Metallica and started “acting more adult” as the ripe old age of 10. Anyway, Bravestarr also marks the end of an era for Filmation studios as it was their last big show before they closed their doors.

When I was hunting for cels I couldn’t find that many of Bravestarr that featured a nice shot of his face, or a full body shot. The above cel was about the best I could find. I wasn’t sure what he was holding in the scene, but I’ve since found the episode and realized that it was some sort of canister with a rope coming out of it.



One of the complaints I’ve heard about the quality of the Bravestarr cartoon is actually one of the aspects that I love the most, the sketchiness of the black line work. The cartoon feels very rough around the edges this way but I think it adds both character and enhances the western feel of the show.

Today's Cartoon Commentary! is going to be a quick one as I'm so busy at work I feel like I need an extra set of legs so that I can run in two directions at once.  This cel is another from the She-Ra: Princess of Power cartoon (circa 1985-86) and features one of the Horde Troopers on his wonderous flying machine.  I originally picked up this cel to showcase an example of a more rigid technological item instead of the more common fluid character cels.



What I found really interesting about this is that even though vehicles like this come off very straight-edged and technically perfect, when you get close up to the image you can see that it's not quite so.  Some of the line work looks like it was done by hand instead of with rulers and stuff, though I don't have the pencil under drawing to see this for sure.  Because it looks like it was mostly drawn free hand I can only imagine how much of a headache this could be while animating, trying to match up all the little parallel lines and connections between the metal plates and stuff.  Maddening actually.



Next week, less stress at work (laugh) and some cels from Bravestarr!

It's been forever and a day since I saw the movie that the stickers below are merchandised off of, so all I have to go on when it comes to Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend are some vague happy memories of watching the sort of realistic dinosaurs and only partially making the connection that they were being saved by non other than the greatest American hero himself, William Katt.


Though typically I'm a proponent of practical effect over CGI, I have to say that looking back at these Topps sticker cards from 1985 I think I would have a difficult time coming to the defense of the effects in the film.  The baby brontosaurus looks just side of papier-mâché or perhaps a piñata as far as quality goes and I'm sure it must have been difficult for Katt and Sean Young (who play's Katt's wife) to try and act alongside it.  When I look back on films that put actors in similar situations like E.T., Short Circuit, Gremlins, Spacecamp, and heck even Critters, I don't see the same issues.  Maybe there needs to be a size limitation on the animatronic acting counterpart or something, I don't know.  You can tell the production team had their hearts in the right place though and maybe just overreached their limitations a bit after the blockbuster success of flicks like Star Wars.


One thing I'm really not fond of is how the designers of the DVD packaging for this flick are trying to rip off Jurassic Park (as you can see here in the new logo.)  It's like reverse timely vampiric marketing.

Looking back on it I'm not exactly surprised that this flick had an entire card and sticker set merchandised off of it, I'm actually surprised that there weren't more products since typically toy lines and such are developed in advance so they can be ready in stores after a film's release.  I guess either the producers weren't sure about the marketing, or the various companies bidding for the property weren't interested.


These sticker cards are pretty standard fare interms of Topps film merchandising output over the 80s.  11 stickers and one cardback puzzle.

I feel like I'm so behind in keeping a regular posting schedule around here.  My day job is sapping so much of my time lately, and yeah, blah, blah, blah I know no one wants to read about my day job woes.  Anyway, there is a bright light on the horizon though as things are starting to fit into place and are getting back to normal (which means a regular schedule and routine), so hopefully I'll be back to normal soon.

In the mean time, here is another edition of Cartoon Commentary!, and yet another piece from my 80s animation cel collection.  This week I'm going to take another look at a cel from the Filmation He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon, circa 1984-85.  This one features another one of my favorite characters, Battle Cat, the alter ego of Cringer and steed/side kick to the muscled man himself, He-Man.



I think when it comes to Masters of the Universe I tend to fall in love with characters based on their design more than their personality per-se.  So as far as design goes, I really dig Battle Cat, in particular his gnarly helmet/mask, which highlights his almost serpentine yellow eyes.  I also love that the toy and cartoon designers managed to use the red and green color scheme without evoking even a lick of Christmas, which I have to say seems almost an impossible feat.  As far as personality goes, I like that they managed to turn give the Scooby Doo archetype a bit of a twist with his transformation from the meek fraidy cat Cringer into the bold and gruff Battle Cat.

Also, I managed to get a more overall scan of the cel this time so the production notes are included at the bottom (like I've mentioned, my scanner isn't all that big.)  I haven't managed to decode all of the notes yet, but I do know that the MU-92 refers to Masters of the Universe episode #92.  I'm not positive but I think that this cel is part of a sequence in which Battle Cat is about to leap up, and not the play bow that it appears to be.  Here's a closer view of the cropped image…



There isn't a whole lot to learn from this cel and its pencil under drawing.  The one thing I did notice that is kind of interesting is in the pencil drawing.  The animator made sure to color in a couple areas in Battle Cat's mouth, I'm assuming to show the final ink & paint artist where there would some color variation in that area.  You can see that whoever painted this cel could have misinterpreted the area to the right of Battle Cat's teeth as another place to paint in a darker red as it appears to be colored in like the area to the left, but upon closer inspection this is just where some of the blue pencil lines came close together.  I can see where it would be easy to miss-color something in the painting process, and again where Filmation benefits from having it all done in house where the communication would be better.



I have one more cel, from She-Ra, to share next week before I move on to another Filmation cartoon that I loved growing up, Bravestarr.

From time to time I get solicited for reviews by marketing firms representing companies with DVDs or CDs that they want to get the word out on.  Typically these are targeted pretty well, at least in terms of my interests and what not, so I accept and do my best to write and honest review of the product in question.  Lately though I've noticed an increasing trend where these companies want me to pimp products that either don't hit on my interests all that well or they want me to blindly "review" a product or service, which basically means that I don't get a chance to really play with the item in question (they either don't supply a review copy or it's a truncated version.

Recently I accepted a solicitation to review some CDs that came out this past year, the deluxe collector's edition of Blondie's Parallel Lines and the 2-Disc Pat Benatar Ultimate Collection.  On the one hand I was kind of dreading the idea of writing reviews for albums that have either been available for 30 odd years (Blondie), or are career retrospectives of an artist that I'm not all that familiar with (Benatar.)  Not to mention the fact that I'm far from a music aficionado and don't really know how to do a good review beyond gushing about what I like to listen to, etc.  On the other I felt confident that I'd be able to come up with something based on the format with which these albums are being released (the packaging and extras), I mean that's really what the company (in this case EMI) is selling right? 

Well, here's where the above mini rant comes in.  Because companies are becoming stingier and stinger as far as providing review copies, it makes the job of pimping their product very difficult.  Basically EMI sent me the barest of bones versions of both albums, which are for all intents and purposes burned copies of the music on CD with almost plain white packaging (they had small photocopied versions of the album covers, but that's about it.)  None of the actual packaging is included, so I'm left with only the music (and a bonus DVD that came with the Blondie album), which affirms my fear that I have to find something original to say about these albums.

I guess I'll start with the deluxe collector's edition of Blondie's Parallel Lines as I'm more familiar with both the band and the album…



Call 'em new wave, punk, post punk, pop or just plain rock, Blondie is certainly one of the most recognized bands to come out of the 70s New York Punk movement, and this success can surely be attributed to their breakout album Parallel Lines (well breakout in America that is.)  This is also the album that solidified the classic Blondie sextet of Debbie Harry on vocals, Chris Stein on guitar, Frank Infante also on guitar, Jimmy Destri on keyboards, Nigel Harrison on bass (taking over from Infante who had then recently moved to guitar), and Clem Burke on drums.

Parallel Lines is probably the tightest of Blondie's oeuvre, with a mess of hits (both in the U.S. and the U.K.), but everything on the album feels pretty solid which seems pretty rare in the post Beatles/Beach Boys pop scene where many albums seemed to have two singles and a ton of filler.  It's also the album where the group really begins stretching themselves in terms of style and genre, floating in and out of pop rock, punk, new wave, a touch of reggae and even a smattering of disco (say it ain't so!)  The album practically explodes with 'Hanging on the Telephone' (written by Jack Lee), which features Harry jumping out almost a full second in front of the drums and then the rest of the band.  'Telephone' is pretty much the blueprint for the perfect two and a half minute pop punk song that just keeps pushing and doesn't let up until the last guitar strum fades out.  The album keeps this pace with the second track, the debut of Harry and Harrison's writing collaboration, 'One Way or Another', which opens with a great crisp guitar lick that leads into a very upbeat head bopping rhythm which completely goes against the disturbing stalkerish lyrics.  Harry's cat growl is dripping with feminine machismo, particularly when her voice cracks and you can hear her words practically ripping out of her throat.  OWOA is surely the late 70s reinvention of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood's 'These Boots are Made for Walkin', if not in lyrical content, then in tone and the gusto singing of an empowered woman.



Part of what I love about Blondie is encapsulated in the third track, 'Picture This' (Harry, Stein, & Destri), particularly Debbie Harry's juxtaposition of her deadpan and almost talky singing (not to mention her patented voice crackling) over the perfect pop rhythm of the music.  To me this is the punk creeping out and marring what could otherwise be the perfect pop band, but helping at the same time to keep some of the edge of bands roots and not letting it ever sound too manufactured.  Of course, that doesn't keep her from showing off her vocal range as her lyrics trail off into sustained soaring notes during the short breaks between verses.  Of course another aspect that I dig about the band is expressed in the fourth track 'Fade Away and Radiate' (Stein), which is as much New Wave (with it's moody keyboards and modern dystopian lyrics) as it is Prog Rock (with it's slow plodding beat sweeping toward sonic crescendos; the song reminds me of some of Pink Floyd's Dark side of the Moon), yet also containing a dash of Reggae at the end to close the song out.  It's this variation and experimentation that keeps the band interesting to me.

I can probably go on talking about every song on the album like this, from the fun Talking Heads-esque harmonizing, duets, and the Kraftwerk-ian background electronica of 'I Know But I don't Know', the exquisitely simple beat and church organ keyboard riffs of '11:59', the tug of rope between Harry's talky and sing songy delivery of the lyrics and the start and stop verses on 'Will Anything Happen', the almost sickeningly (but never over the top) sweet early Beatles pop of 'Sunday Girl', the childlike giddiness of 'I'm Gonna Love You Too', which almost sounds like it's riffing off of the Eep Oop Ork Ah-Ah (Means I Love You) song from the Jetsons, or the all-for-one crowd chanting and smarmy backing vocals that punch up 'Just Go Away'.  The biggest surprise for me on the album though is the staying power of the most popular hit on the album, the disco revamping of 'Heart of Glass' a live rock mainstay for the band up until Parallel Lines was recorded.  Not only is it the album's biggest hit, it's also the song that more or less defines the band in the public consciousness popping up on a million pop compilations and band best-of collections.  Growing up surrounded by all of the very plastic and heavily manipulated pop of the 80s, not to mention the glut of sort-of bands that neither wrote nor really preformed their music, you'd think I'd love Heart of Glass outright.  Hell I'm particularly vocal about my love of the Monkees for crying out loud.  But at some point in my upbringing I latched onto the idea of creator written and preformed music equated quality, and I was right there pumping my fist in the air when I saw footage of Tom Petty smashing drum machines and decrying the disco era of pop music.  So when I first heard Heart of Glass as a kid I reacted as if someone threw a wet towel from the garbage in my face.  Years later though, I can't help but appreciate that Blondie was stripping away all the untalented posturing of disco performers and taking the undeniable pop bliss of the sound and melding it with their own, and makes for a perfect dance hit that you can feel proud about liking.

All in all, I completely adore the album, and as I said in the beginning of this rambling love letter of a review, I don't really know what I can add to the 30 years of commentary on Parallel Lines.  I've read that the album's title reflects the never connecting bodies in motion in many of the songs, which I think makes perfect sense.  Unfortunately I fear there really is no original thing I can say about this classic record as a whole.  So again I find myself left with the truncated burned-copy version of the re-release and what sets it apart from the various times this album has been released on CD in the last 20 odd years.  It's called the Deluxe Collectors Edition, but what exactly does that mean?

Well, from reading reviews on Amazon, and thanks to the handy synopsis on the back of my crappy copy I see that the set comes with a booklet featuring the entire original album cover photo session (obviously not included, so I can only hazard a guess that it might be fun.)  The set also contains two discs (and I was lucky enough to get both); Disc one includes 4 bonus audio tracks which consist of alternate versions of 'Heart of Glass' (the 7" version without the little disco opening bit) and 'Sunday Girl' (the French language version that I actually sort of prefer to the original), and two of the most annoying and pointless remixes of 'Hanging on the Telephone' (which is just an evil massacring of the original with a pointless two minute high speed tub thumping intro that I can barely get through) and 'Fade Away and Radiate' (which is almost unrecognizable.)  Disc two contains 4 video shorts, three of which are precursors to what would eventually inundate the teen pop culture on MTV, and the fourth which is a segment from Blondie's appearance on the BBC's Top of the Pops (where they 'preformed' 'Sunday girl'; and yes the quotes around preformed are intentional.)  The first three music videos (which are for 'Heart of Glass', 'Hanging on the Telephone', and 'Picture This') are interesting, but not ground breaking (they've been available in other formats before), not to mention kind of difficult to watch as all of them have the music overdubbed and it's plain to see that the band isn't even trying to go through the motions of faking it.  Heck, during the video for 'Hanging on the Telephone' Jimmy Destri spends most of the running time pretending to hang himself with a phone cord which though fitting for the song, seems instead to speak of his boredom with the at-the-time-pointless video shoot.  The creative impact of music videos just hadn't been explored yet and to me it feels like the band is going along with them in a completely obligatory fashion.  The worst offender of the overdubbing is the Top of the Pops segment though as the band is obviously faking it in front of a live audience.

So in the end, is this version deluxe?  Not really, not when all of the bonus content (except the French version of 'Sunday Girl') detracts from the natural brilliance of the record.  Is it worthy of collectors?  No and, uh, no.  Is it an edition that I would recommend running out to purchase?  Not if you already own it, and honestly, not if you have a choice to get the remastered re-issue from 2001 which is cheaper.  If you can find it cheap it might be worth having nice versions of the promo music videos, but they're hardly worth seeking out the album.

Next week I think I'll sit down and try and get under the hood of the Ultimate Pat Benetar.

There really are millions of ways to waste time on the internet.  The above is time killer number 1,762,543, or as I like to refer to it, my recent productivity in 1,000 words, or how I came to realize that I’ve been using the word ‘cel’ a lot lately…

This time waster brought to you by Wordle, which I stumbled upon while reading the exquisite Frankensteinia this evening…

I figured since I started sharing my animation cel collection last week with an Orko Cel from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (the 1st cel I broke down and purchased for the collection), I thought I'd stick with posting Filmation cels for a bit.  Also, I wanted to mention again that because my scanner is relatively small (8"x12") I can't get a good scan of the entire cel and have decided instead of crop the image so that only the painted image is in frame.  I'm trying to include the production notes at the bottom of the cel when I can, but it doesn’t always work out.  What I need to do is also include a photo of the full cel, which I'm working on (my camera is on the fritz at the moment), but it might take a bit.

Anyway, this week I thought I'd share a cel from the sister show/spin-off of He-Man, She-Ra Princess of Power.  Though I never really watched it when it originally ran I've become a pretty big fan of the show in recent years as there are some interesting plot change-ups when compared to He-Man, a cartoon that I loved growing up.  I always figured that She-Ra was just a version of He-Man for girls, and though to an extent it's exactly that, the premise isn't quite the same.  The most marked difference is in the power struggle between She-Ra and her arch nemesis Hordak, and the fact that Hordak is in control of the fantastical land of Etheria with She-Ra leading a band of freedom fighters to try and liberate the populace.  Whereas on MOTU where King Randor was in control of Eternia and Skeletor was always attempting to usurp that power, constantly being derailed by He-Man and his friends.  The She-Ra cartoon comes off a lot darker and seems as if it takes more cues from the original Star Wars trilogy than any of the barbarian/sword & sorcery epics that informed He-Man.

Again, since I shared a cel featuring Orko last week I thought I'd share a character from the She-Ra cartoon that is sort of his counterpart, Loo-Kee, circa 1985.  Well, actually, the She-Ra 'Orko' would actually be Madame Razz, a bumbling witch who knows She-Ra/Adora's secret much in the same way that Orko knows Prince Adam is really He-Man, but Loo-Kee also shares some similar characteristics to Orko…



Basically Loo-Kee was a character that was hidden in the background of each episode.  He'd appear before the end credits and ask the viewers if they managed to find him (in a very Where's Waldo sort of way), and then he'd proceed to give the moral of the episode. I think this is sort of an interesting way to change up the moral-giving aspect of 80s cartoons as it's now coming from an outside source and can be taken a little bit more as commentary instead of a direct lesson from one of the main characters.  I do believe he ends up mixing with the main cast in a couple of episodes, but for the most part he's sort of outside the plot and it more of a figure head for the show, much like how Orko seems to figure in as a representative icon for the MOTU cartoon.  He's also a smaller, almost comic relief type of character, again much like Orko, so I kind of consider him a partial counterpart.

Anyway, as far as the cel itself goes, I was really happy with this one. The painting is on the large size, taking up a good portion of the cell (about 6.5" square) and it's really colorful.  See color is another draw, at least for me, with animation cels.  Since the cels tend to only have one character or item on them, and since they are typically mostly clear negative space for other cels to lay on top or show through, I find it really cool when the image is striking or vivid.  Loo-Kee was made to be just this as his desing works in practically ever color in the rainbow (except orange and purple, though orange is sort of implied in his skin tone.)  So having the image on the large side and colorful really makes this cel pop.

I even like the depressed, sort of scared expression on the character's face as it's an emotion you don't typically get from him, sort of like an enraged He-Man cel would be.  There's also very little paint damage, just a few specks of missing paint on his coveralls here and there.  The black linework can out mostly crisp as well in this cel, so it doesn't end up looking too sketchy or like a bad photocopy.



Something I meant to point out in the last CC! is the quality of work Filmation did with it's cartoons.  Now I'm pretty much talking out of my ass here as I really don't know all the ins and outs of the animation process, but from what I can gather just by examining the cels in my collection, the Filmation cels all seem have a little bit more going on in the quality department.  For instance, when looking at the back of the cels where the paint was actually applied, you can see that almost none of the black line work shows through the paint.  Typically I wouldn't claim a paint's opaqueness as a mark of quality, but when I was thinking about some of the other cels I have and how you can very clearly see the line work through the paint on the back it occurred to me that you might have areas when paint overlaps that might be discolored because the last color applied might filter through the other layers of paint.  This certainly seems like a quality issue to me.  Also, all of the Filmation cels that I own are larger (11"x14") than most of the other cartoons I've seen so far (which range from 8.5"x11" to 9"x12".)  Again, not that size equals quality, but it does free up the artists to work in a little more detail or play around with layout a bit more.

I have to assume this is because Filmation was almost entirely animated in-house as opposed to outsourcing the cel production work.  From all of the special features I've watched included in the sets released by BCI: Ink & Paint, Filmation really does come off as a studio that cared a great deal about quality.  It"s funny, people tend to point fingers at Filmation for re-using animation sequences, but by doing so they could afford to keep the whole production together which meant that coordination and communication between departments putting a show together were always the best they could possibly be.  Not that this is something visible from the cel above, but you could also see this in the various series they worked on as there really weren't that many obvious animation errors like miss-colored characters or unevenly photographed cels, again because of the fact that it was all done in-house.



As far as the pencil under drawing for this Loo-Kee cel goes, there isn't all that much to comment on.  I thought it was interesting that the animator took the extra couple of seconds to fill in his eyebrows and pupils as it seems like an extra step that's not needed considering the final cel will have to have these areas filling in or touched up in black paint.  Granted it's not a large area of black fill in the pencils, but when you compare it to the Orko pencil drawing I shared last week, you can see that they didn't bother to color in either the 'O' on his cloak or the shadow under his hat where his eyes peek out.

Next week I'll have another CC! featuring yet another animation cel from Filmation…

I thought I'd take a second and both throw out a shout to a really fun contest that the Art & Story podcast (hosted by Jerzy Drozd and Mark Rudolph of Sugary Serials) is running as well as posting my entry.  I don't typically dabble all that much in sequential art, but the idea was too much fun not to try.  Basically the contest is a variation on a project that Jerzy, his wife Anne and Mark have called 12/12 (details are located here) where they randomly pick 3 newspaper headlines and three items and then they try and hammer out a six-panel comic working it all together.

If the concept sounds interesting, check out the Art & Story podcast, listen to a couple episodes (in particular this episode which details the 12/12 project) and then take a crack at making a comic yourself.  The winning submission will be drawn randomly from all received and will be rewarded with a jackpot of fun comics including everything Jerzy and Mark have published (that they have in print) and a bunch of comics culled from the quarter bins during this past Wizard World Chicago (I was there during the hunt and there are some choice items for sure.)

Anyway, here is my submission. Can you guess which items and headlines I had to work with (from this posted list?)

I just wanted to take a second and mention that copies of the 2nd Branded in the 80s magazine, the special Micro-Magazine edition that I did specifically for Wizard World Chicago this year are now available for purchase online (as well as copies of the longer 1st issue.)  Just click on the picture of the books above, or at the top left of the page to order them through Indy Planet.  The micro-mag is only 8 pages long, but contains an exclusive (yeah I know, goofy isn't it) article on Choose Your Own Adventure style books from the 70s and 80s.  All magazine purchases go directly to the upkeep of this site, so if you're interested in supporting the Branded in the 80s project, by all means pick a copy of the books.

I thought I'd also take a second to mention that there are a few comic shops now carrying copies of Branded in the 80s:

A Comic Shop
114 South Semoran Blvd.
Winter Park, FL 32792
(407) 332-9636
(I talked to the owner and one of the guys who works in the shop and they seem like some really great people.  The shop is really nice and they stock some great stuff.)

Titan Games and Comics (Duluth, GA location)
2131 Pleasant Hill Road
Duluth, GA 30096
(770) 497-0202
(This has been one of my local shops since I moved to GA back in '90, a mainstay.)

Criminal Records
466 Moreland Ave, NE
Atlanta, GA 30307
(404) 215-9511
(Great music and comic shop in the Little Five area of Atlanta, right next to Junkman's Daughter.)

Bizarro Wuxtry
197 E. Clayton Street
Athens, Georgia 30601
(This is an awesome store in Athens run by the equally as awesome Devlin Thompson featuring all sorts of comics, magazines, books, toys, ephemera, and nostalgia goodness.  I can't leave this place without dropping a bundle on stuff...)

Anyway, ending self-pimping transmission…

It's been awhile since I had a moment to sit down and sort of deconstruct a cartoon episode for the Cartoon Commentary! column.  I'm not tooting my horn in terms of importance or quality when I say this, but these columns tend to be pretty time intensive including watching and re-watching cartoon episodes, note taking, getting the screen grabs for the scenes I want to talk about, etc.  It's still something that I want to and enjoy doing; it's just been on the back burner for a bit.  Before I get too far removed from doing them though I wanted to sort of revive the column by including another facet to my 80s cartoon nostalgia.

Recently I began thinking about how I want to 'collect' and remember the cartoons I loved as a kid.  I have a few goals as far as a collection goes, and since I have some silly issues about buying up old toys and stuff off of eBay I've mainly been focusing on picking up whatever I can on DVD.  My original goal was to get at least one episode from every show on DVD, but as the format changed and season boxsets became first the rage, and then affordable, I've been focusing on those.

Lately though I've stumbled unto another money sucking aspect to the collection, but one that really solidifies the idea of 'owning' a piece of my childhood, which are animation cels.  Pretty much, for me at least, animation cels represent the ultimate keepsake when it comes to cartoons, as you can't get much closer to the source material beyond finding a weird Charlie Kafuman-esque way of crawling into the heads of the animators and writers who created these shows (and it's much less disturbing in that stalker sort of way.)  Also, as far as the collecting gene that I suffer from, I'm the type that prefers the ability to easily look at (my wife would say 'blankly stare at') the collection, as opposed to simply squirreling it away with the knowledge that it's there (which is one of the reasons I can't bring myself to buy individual comic books anymore as they don't display well.)  So the nice original hand-painted cels will hopefully look really swell framed and on the wall.  Anyway, I figured since I'm going to be scanning these in as I buy them for posterity reasons, I might as well share them on the site, and it might as well be under the Cartoon Commentary! heading as it fits in really nicely.

Today I thought I'd share the first cel I decided to buy.  It's a medium sized shot of Orko from the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe show…



Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with the process of traditional animation, each second of footage in a cartoon in made up of a series of drawings and paintings done on cellulose acetate (think of a clear plastic sheet much like a transparency) overlaid on top of an opaque painted background.  Typically, each separate element in an animation scene that moves will be painted on it's own transparent cel, and then the cels are laid on top of each other to form a scene.  So when I say I'm picking up animation cels for the collection, they are usually going to be one of the individual elements on it's own cel without the background (as this is pretty much the only way I've seen them available for purchase.)  Since the backgrounds are re-used so much they are a bit rarer and might have been sold off in separate lots than the bulk sets of animation cels when studios liquidate their stock.  Also, there are typically a series of production numbers at the bottom of a cel (so the animators can keep track of each cel as there are thousands per episode), and I'm going to try and keep those in the scan when I can, but my scanner only has an 8"x12" bed, so for the Orko cel above I couldn't fit both the painting and the production notes.

I was really happy with this cel (especially for the price), as it's a character I adored from the He-Man cartoon and the actual image itself it pretty nice.  He's floating in a more or less normal pose, which his full body in the shot and his eyes are open.  This points to another aspect of collecting cels that's sort of weird.  Like I mentioned above, there are thousands upon thousands of cels produced for each and every cartoon covering a whole range of movement and perspective, so it's a gamble as to whether or not you'll find a cel where the character or element you want is small, medium or close-up, whether it's in a weird position, whether the character's eyes are closed or if there's an element from another cel intended to sit directly on top of this one you want (in which case that portion isn't painted as it wouldn't show on film anyway.)  Sometimes characters are cut-off on the side of a cel if they are entering the scene from either side, and it depends on what you are looking for as to where there is a full body shot or if it's more of a bust-like close-up.  It really is a crap-shoot.

As far as the actual quality of the artwork itself, this particular cel has survived pretty well over the 24 year or so that's it been around changing hands.  None of the paint has chipped off or stuck to the pencil under drawing that was included (see below), and all of the tiny little blemishes in the black line work appear to be original from when the cel was first produced.  Again, going into a little bit of the process of cel animation, and I'm certainly not an authority on the matter, but from what I can gather there are a series of pencil tests done on paper that is the same size as the finished cels.  These pencil tests include drawings of the various elements through out their series of movements in a scene.  Each pose is rendered on a separate piece of paper which are them scanned in or photographed to see how well the movement works.  If these pass the inspection, they are passed on to junior animators who fill in the gaps of the movements, again in pencil on separate pages.  When the final set are approved, they go onto to yet another group who use model sheets as guides and they re-draw all the pages so that it all looks like one artist drew the final sequence.  These final pencil drawings are then copied to the acetate cels, either hand inked, or photocopied.  I'm not positive but I would assume with the speed at which television animation needs to be produced that they are typically photocopied onto the acetate and then painters come behind them and paint the cels.

The blemishes in the black linework in the above Orko cel look like a bad photocopy job, is basically what I'm getting at here.  Now, for completeness sake I thought I'd also scan in the back of the cel where the actual paint is applied…



Now the Orko cel above is pretty simple in terms of color choices, there aren't any shading or color variations in the final image.  So basically it was simply a matter of painting on the back of the cel (so that the front will look crisp and clean) underneath the copied black linework (so that the line work when the image if flipped around will be showing with the paint under), taking care to paint anything perspective-wise that would be closer to the camera (for instance his right hand and ear with overlap both is cloak and hat respectively.)  You'd want to paint the closer aspects first so that they appear to overlap the colors that are 'behind' them and so that the red of his cloak doesn't bleed onto his hands, which would break the suspension of disbelief aspect to the image.  So when you look at the back of the cel you can see that the paint is pretty messy, but because of the way it's layered it looks crisp and clean from the other side.



The last element of the process (which is actually the last image created before the final cel is painted) is the pencil under drawing above.  This is the final drawing that is transferred onto the cel before it's painted.  As you can see in the drawing, it's initially done in non-photo blue lead to get the pose and basic shapes down, and then is 'inked' with a regular graphite lead for the final line work.  You can see in the artwork above where the animators kept changing the placement of the tip of Orko's hat.  When the final pencils are done there is no need to erase the blue under pencils because they won't copy onto the cel.

So I don't have a ton of animation cels in my collection yet, but over the next few months I'll try and share them as I scan them in.