With original WB production cells and production drawings plus several types of limited edition Looney Tunes animation art available, how does a Warner Bros. fan decide what to buy?

As a Warner Bros. Authorized Gallery, we have assisted thousands of customers in making decisions about their Looney Tunes animation art purchases. While you have to decide what WB characters you like best (I'm a Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck guy myself), we can help you with the rest. It's not that difficult... really!

The first step is to understand the differences between the various types of WB animation art. The second step is to step back from all this detail and ask yourself "what do you want to see hanging on your wall?" In this way you will be choosing with your head and your heart, and you can't go wrong!

First, the various types of Looney Tunes animation art available:

1. Original Production Cells (or Cels): One of a kind, hand-painted pieces that went under camera in the making of a Looney Tunes cartoon. Original cells from the early days of WB animation are extremely rare (and expensive if you can find them) as the overwhelming majority of them were destroyed years ago. In 1963 Warner Bros. closed their animation studio. Having no appreciation whatsoever of the historic or artistic merit of the countless cells and other animation art in their warehouses, the good folk at WB bulldozed them into a big pit in the back lot and burned them. Hard as it is to believe, WB destroyed the artistic legacy of three decades of historic Looney Tunes animation art that fateful day.

The original cells that are available to Looney Tunes fans and collectors today are from the 1970's, 80's and 90's. In the 1990's Warner Bros., along with all the other major animation studios, switched over to digital production and cells are no longer created.

A WB production cell may feature one or more characters, and may be made up of one or more layers of clear celluloid acetate with the characters hand-painted on the reverse. This incredibly time consuming process is at the heart of traditional cell animation.

While it takes many thousands of cells to create a Looney Tunes cartoon, a very small percentage are complete, recognizable characters or scenes that you would want to hang on your wall. In order to speed up the animation process, WB artists only re-paint the part of a character that is in motion at any given moment. For example, if a character is standing still and speaking, there may be hundreds of cells painted with just his mouth or face, and just one body. When it comes time to release the cells for sale, the body will be matched up with one complete face, and the remaining bits and pieces will be archived or destroyed.

WB production cells are very popular pieces of animation art as they offer Looney Tunes fans and collectors an opportunity to own a one of a kind "moment in time" from a cartoon featuring some of the greatest characters in animation history.

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2. Original Production Drawings: One of a kind, hand-drawn pieces that were used in animating an WB cartoon. Drawn in pencil on animation paper, production drawings are the artistic backbone of the Looney Tunes. Each character action and pose must be drawn by hand before the corresponding cell can be painted.

Some drawings feature codes and notations regarding the layout of the scene, the sequence of the drawings, the positioning of the cells and other production requirements. These features, together with the roughness of some drawings, can give them a very raw, "behind-the-scenes" look that is very desirable to collectors who appreciate the tremendous effort that goes into animating a Looney Tunes cartoon.

3. Hand-Painted Limited Edition Cells: As so much of the original animation art used in creating the classic Looney Tunes was destroyed when Warner Bros. closed their animation studio in 1963, limited edition cells are a very big part of the WB collectors market. Painted using the same materials and techniques as production cells, hand-painted limited edition cells give Looney Tunes fans access to scenes that would never be available as an original. Some are directly based on a scene in a classic Looney Tunes cartoon, while others are scenes envisioned by the current generation of WB animators. Some of the most desirable pieces of Warner Bros. animation art are hand-painted limited edition cells.

Individually hand-painted in small editions (typically between 100 and 500 pieces worldwide), these pieces offer many great scenes and characters that would never be found as original cells.

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4. Limited Edition Serigraph Cells: Very similar in appearance to hand-painted limited editions, serigraph cells (or "sericels") are considerably less expensive for several reasons. Firstly, they are silk-screened rather than hand-painted. While this is still a very high quality and time consuming process (each color is screened one at a time), it is not as difficult or expensive as hand painting. Secondly, serigraph cells are produced in larger edition sizes (typically between 1000 and 5000 pieces worldwide). Still a small number when you consider how many Looney Tunes fans there are in the world!

WB serigraph cells are extremely popular pieces of animation art as you can get many characters and terrific scenes at very reasonable prices. Like all the other types of Looney Tunes art, serigraph cells come with the official seal on the front and the official certificate of authenticity on the back. Many WB collectors begin with one or two serigraph cells before moving on to purchase hand-painted animation art. Serigraph cells are also great gifts for Looney Tunes fans!

5. Limited Edition Giclees: A giclee is a very high quality digital print on paper or canvas. The beauty of well made giclees has made them extremely popular choices for art collectors around the world (not just in animation art galleries, but in all genres of art). They are fast replacing traditional lithographs as the preferred means of fine art reproduction as they offer superior quality at reasonable prices.




6. Hand-Painted Etchings: The introductory price point in WB animation art is hand-painted Looney Tunes etchings. So many of the greatest characters are available... Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Marvin the Martian, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester, Tweety, Michigan J. Frog and more! Their small size (13.5" x 13.5" framed) and very affordable price ($85 US framing included) makes them very popular gifts and pieces for people new to collecting Looney Tunes animation art.

Done under exclusive contract by the studios of artists Sowa and Reiser, the outline is hand etched into a copper plate, inked and pressed into hand-made paper. Once the black outline has dried, they are hand-painted with watercolors. Each is numbered in a limited edition of 500 and bears the WB copyright on the front and comes with a certificate of authenticity.



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Whew... Okay, now we've covered the technical side of Looney Tunes animation art, let's have some fun!

While we always recommend that you understand what you're spending your hard earned money on, at the end of the day you've got to purchase animation art that you love to look at. Whether a piece is original or a limited edition, celluloid acetate or paper, large or small, animation art has got to speak to you.

What do you love most about Warner Bros. cartoons? Do you, to paraphrase legendary Looney Tunes animation director Chuck Jones, wish you could be Bugs Bunny but see Daffy Duck whenever you look in the mirror? Are you a hopeless romantic like Pepe Le Pew? Does nothing put a smile on your face like pint-sized menace Marvin the Martian threatening to obliterate earth because it blocks his view of Venus? Do you love the early days of black and white WB cartoons when the art form was in its infancy?

The bottom line is: what do you want to see on your wall every day?

Some Looney Tunes animation art collectors seek specific characters, others look for specific cartoons they remember and love. Others follow the simple adage "if it makes me smile from ear to ear, I've got to have it!" If it's a gift, you cannot go wrong with Bugs Bunny.

We're always here to answer questions and help, but in the end, you've got to make the choice that's right for you. If you're not sure... get two!

Here's to Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Mel Blanc and all the other WB legends who brought us Bugs Bunny and friends and made our world a bit better place!

Steve Watt
Owner and General Manager
Animation Connection - The best choice for Looney Tunes cells and other WB animation art
800-700-1173

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