Heritage Animation Art September Auctions: Anime, Flintstones and Everything Cool

September 7th, 2022

Jerry Beck

Anime collectors who subscribe to the notion that “bigger is better” will find no better destination than Heritage Auctions’ The Art of Anime and Everything Cool Signature Auction Vol. III. The Sept. 23-26 event includes more than 900 lots of anime from an exceptional array of artists, enough to appeal to collectors of all tastes.

“This incredible auction is the third of its kind, following the record-breaking Part II in December that reached $2.6 million,” said Jim Lentz, Vice President and Director of Anime and Animation Art at Heritage Auctions. “This auction includes more than 900 lots, making it one of the largest collections of anime ever to reach the auction market. It features some of the most notable characters, titles and artists in the rich history of anime, the hand-drawn and computer-generated artwork that started in Japan and has become exceedingly popular around the world.”

Among the included lots are 49 from Akira, the extremely popular 1988 Japanese animated cyberpunk action film directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, produced by Ryōhei Suzuki and Shunzō Katō, and written by Otomo and Izo Hashimoto, based on Otomo’s 1982 manga of the same name. Top lots from the film include, but are not limited, to production cels featuring Kaneda and Tetsuo, as well as animation drawings from the film.

The event boasts a selection of 57 lots from Studio Ghibli, the Japanese studio known best for its animated feature films that also has produced several short subjects, TV films and commercials.

Top draws from Studio Ghibli include, but are not limited to:

· A My Neighbor Totoro Catbus Production Cel

· A Kiki’s Delivery Service Kiki and Jiji Production Cel and Animation Drawing

· A Princess Mononoke Kodama Production Cel

“Mind, Matching, Moment” Eva Unit 01 Production Cel with Painted Background is among the headliners in a selection of 55 Neon Genesis Evangelion lots. Created by Hideaki Anno, Neon Genesis Evangelion revitalized the mecha genre, a favorite of Anno himself, by taking familiar tropes and re-contextualizing them. Other top Neon Genesis Evangelion lots include, but are not limited to:

· “A Man’s Battle” Asuka Production Cel

· “Moment and Heart Together” Eva Unit 01 Production Cel with Production Background

· “Angel Attack” Shinji and Gendo Ikari Production Cel and Animation Drawing Group of 3

No anime event would be complete without Pokémon, which is featured in 20 lots in this auction, including the “Fowl Play!” Pikachu Thunderbolt Production Cel Setup with Group of 2 Douga. Pikachu uses Thunderbolt to help Ash capture a Shiny Noctowl in this episode from Pokémon: The Johto Journeys. This episode, entitled “Fowl Play!,” marks the first appearance of a Shiny Pokémon in the Pokémon anime.

Other top Pokémon lots include, but are not limited to:

· An Ash Ketchum and Pikachu Production Cel

· A “Tentacool & Tentacruel” Season 1 Pikachu and Pidgeotto Production Cel

· A “The Mystery Is History” Ash, Pikachu, Togepi, Misty and Brock Production Cel With “What I Did for Love!” Master Background

The auction includes seven lots from Cowboy Bebop, the Japanese neo-noir science fiction anime TV series created and animated by Sunrise, featuring a production team of director Shinichirō Watanabe, screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto, character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, mechanical designer Kimitoshi Yamane, and composer Yoko Kanno, who are collectively billed as Hajime Yatate. Cowboy Bebop highlights in the auction include, but are not limited to: “Cowboy Funk” Spike and Jet Production Cel Setup with Key Master Background, Spike Spiegel Production Cel and Animation Drawing and “Jupiter Jazz Part 1” Faye Valentine Production Cel and Animation Drawing.

Also heavily represented in the event is an assemblage of 39 lots from Dragon Ball Z, the anime that was part of the Dragon Ball media franchise. Among the top lots in the trove:

· An Episode 34 Vegeta Production Cel with Production Background – an amazing image of the Saiyan Prince, Vegeta, injured during his battle against Goku and his friends

· A Goku Production Cel with Painted Background, in which Goku prepares his signature move, the iconic Kamehameha.

· A Dragon Ball Z Gohan Production Cel with Custom Painted Background

Also included is a selection of 10 lots from Cardcaptor Sakura (sometimes abbreviated as “CCS”), a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by the manga group Clamp – among them “Sakura’s Rival Appears” Syaoran Li Production Cel with Production Background and Animation Drawing and Sakura Kinomoto Production Cel with Production Background and Animation Drawing that features the protagonist of the series.

Other top attractions in the auction include, but are not limited to Ghost in the Shell,Trigun, Cardcaptor Sakura, Sailor Moon, One Piece and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.

Also featured is a selection of 31 lots of animation art from Aeon Flux, the action series created by Peter Chung, whose style is reminiscent of anime productions. Chung has had a significant impact on a wide range of projects, from his early career working for Hanna-Barbera and Ralph Bakshi to the creation and direction of Aeon Flux to his current role teaching animation.

“There are certain things that everybody needs in society to survive and to live,” Chung once said. “You need food, you need shelter, you need clothing. But you also need communication, and that’s what art is. Art is communication.”

Top lots in the auction from the Chung archive include, but are not limited to:

A CD-Rom Commercial Production Cel Sequence of 3 Signed by Peter Chung with Key Master Pan Background

A “Leisure” Production Cel Setup with Key Master Background Signed by Peter Chung

The sale’s “Everything Cool, Volume III” section includes a huge selection of 73 lots from The Simpsons, the iconic cartoon that started out as a series of one-minute shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show in the 1980s and evolved into the longest-running sitcom in television history, a fixture on screens around the world that recently celebrated its 33^rd anniversary! Offerings will include original art, unique props, sculptures and standees used in promotion of the Simpsons movie. Lots from the largest Simpsons selection ever offered by Heritage Auctions come from the show’s greatest episodes, including original animation drawings and including the ever-popular couch gags.

Among the top lots:

· A “The Thing and I” Bart and Hugo Simpson Production Cel

Among the top lots:

· A “Skinner and the Superintendent” Title Cel and Animation Drawing (Fox, 1996)

· A “Three Men and a Comic Book” Bartman Production Cel Setup

· A “Who Shot Mr. Burns? – Part II” Waylon J. Smithers and Charles Montgomery Burns Production Cel

· A “Krusty gets Kancelled” Bart, Lisa and Krusty Production Cel

· A “Bart’s Friend Falls in Love” Bart Simpson and Failed Test Production Cel

¡Ay, caramba!

“Those who have fallen in love with the distinct aesthetics, colorful animation and unforgettable characters of the widely beloved global phenomenon will find plenty of appealing choices in this auction,” Lentz said.

Images and information about all lots in this auction can be found at HA.com/7292.

From the fall of 2016 until the spring of 2017, the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Ma., hosted the “Hanna-Barbera: The Architects of Saturday Morning” exhibition. Included in that wildly popular exhibition were original animation art, sketches and model sheets from The Flintstones, which, on Sept. 30, 1960, became primetime television’s first animated series – and the only successful one until The Simpsons debuted 30 years later. For kids, the show was heaven: Cartoons at night! And for their parents, well, it wasn’t The Honeymooners but close enough.

Ten of those pieces displayed in the Rockwell Museum make their auction debut Sept. 23-26 at Heritage Auctions during the latest Art of Anime and Everything Cool Signature^® Auction. This extraordinary cache of Flintstones works, which were also featured in the 1994 book The Flintstones: A Modern Stone Age Phenomenon, comes from the collection of longtime Flintstones fan Mike Fazio and includes early character designs and model sheets by animation greats Ed Benedict and Dick Bickenbach.

In all, Fazio has consigned some 40 of the 90 Flintstones offerings in this auction. Those that didn’t make the museum certainly belonged there.

“I loved the show, but what got me into it more than anything were the animators,” Fazio says of the idols who in time became friends. “Dick and Ed were such terrific people. When you do animation you’re so happy, so nice. That goes hand-in-hand with creating these fun characters. I loved those guys.”

They are, you guessed it, pages right out of history – the earliest glimpses of the Flintstones as they found their faces, their voices, even their names (the series was pitched as The Flagstones). These are the characters as first envisioned by William Hanna and Joe Barbera and their stable of writers and animators as they endeavored to stretch their short-form cartoons into a half-hour series. These are the rough drafts, the first looks, where Tex Avery’s First Bad Man met Ralph Kramden on their way to the Fleischer Bros.’ Granite Hotel.

Featured in this auction are Benedict’s renderings of a thin Fred Flintstone, a vaguely recognizable Barney Rubble and … wait, what … Fred Jr.? Here, too, is Wilma Flintstone looking blonder and a little younger than her finished counterpart, and Betty Rubble modeling myriad hairstyles. Also included in this event is Benedict’s early pencil sketch of the Flintstones’ “split-level cave” and the Rubble family home, which were some tony digs in the Stone Age, and a 1960 model sheet featuring Betty and Dino.

From Bickenbach comes this character design of Fred and Barney done at the request of Barbera. The pair look more familiar than in Benedict’s early sketches, but Fred’s sporting a bow tie. Here’s the finished, “modernized” Fred and Barney, in a 1965 model sheet made for the series’ final season that also features Pebbles. Wilma likewise got a Bickenbach makeover during that last year: “Wilma now is longer legged,” reads one of his notes dated February 1965. Two years earlier he also introduced the pregnant Wilma, who was first seen in the Season Three episode “The Surprise.” For a series set in the Stone Age, The Flintstones was surprisingly progressive: Fred and Wilma were even seen sharing the same bed.

But the series was decidedly family-friendly, too, as evidenced by an early concept painting that shows The Flintstones that wasn’t: Fred as short, stocky, unkempt caveman in furs and Wilma as a voluptuous, scantily clad pin-up.

Fazio, an animation-art dealer, adored the output of Hanna-Barbera, which was quirkier than the rounded, polished work being done at Disney and Warner Bros. AsThe Hollywood Reporter noted in its review of The Flintstones’ premiere: “New TV series appeal stems from yak-track with Picasso-school impressionist treatment rather than standard hi-fi animation.”

“These are just wonderful works of art,” Fazio says. “If you look at what Ed did, he used charcoal when he did some of the concept art, and they’re just magnificent works of art. And even as a child I could see the difference between the storylines of The Flintstones versus the Saturday morning cartoons. On Saturdays the stories were fun but primitive. Then, all of the sudden, there was this primetime show being compared to The Honeymooners. And they were amazing stories. Even as a 7-year-old I could tell the difference.”

Among his other offerings in this event are some of the most iconic Flintstones images available, including a production cel from the 1960 Winston cigarette commercial in which Fred’s enjoying a smoke while watching television. Here, too, are Bickenbach’s layout drawings for TV Guide’s Flintstones covers in 1961 and 1964. And there are many more character design drawings and model sheets by both Bickenbach and Benedict, alongside production cels, original comic strip art and other collectibles and keepsakes from the show that continues to influence animators and delight audiences.

“I always thought I would keep my Flintstones collection,” Fazio says. “But I am retired. And now, it’s time for others to enjoy it.”

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Jerry Beck

Writer, cartoon producer and author of more than 15 books on animation history. A former studio exec with Nickelodeon and Disney; currently on the faculty at both CalArts in Valencia and Woodbury University in Burbank, California.