Drawing Attention : 2-Year-Old Quarterly...

Item No. 68 is a small painting of coral and purple hues. The bidding begins at $2,000 and heats up from there. The auctioneer acknowledges a gentleman at the rear of the ballroom, then another along the wall. A dozen or more bids are made before the artwork sells.

The winning bid is $4,500 for a depiction of the red-haired mermaid from the 1953 Disney movie “Peter Pan.” The artwork is a cel--one of thousands of 9-by-11-inch paintings done on clear acetate that were photographed in sequence to make the animated film.

A few minutes later, a man wearing a blue-satin Mickey Mouse cap pays $11,000 for a 1940 cel of Jiminy Cricket.

During the last decade, animation art has grown steadily in popularity. Sotheby’s and Christie’s deal in cels, cartoon sketches and the limited-edition cels that are produced expressly for sale to collectors. Several Los Angeles galleries specialize in animation art and one of them, the Howard Lowery Gallery in Burbank, regularly holds auctions, including the one in the Burbank Hilton’s ballroom in March.

So far, the top price paid for a piece of animation art was $286,000 for a black-and-white cel from a 1934 Disney film, “The Orphan’s Benefit.” But such heady purchases are rarer of late and most collectors are simply cartoon fans, baby boomers who have the disposable income to spend $500 to $5,000 on scenes from the animated films and television shows they grew up with.

That’s where John Altyn and Bruce Sheinhaus come in. They publish a Toluca Lake-based quarterly, In Toon!, that reports on auctions and galleries, and offers some do’s and don’ts on collecting cels.

“We want to educate people,” Altyn says, by providing articles that help readers “avoid getting ripped off or missing out on a deal.”

Two years ago, when Altyn and Sheinhaus compiled their first, eight-page issue, Christie’s wouldn’t let them in the door. They stood outside, a little to the side, and handed it out for free. Now, the 24-page magazine has a paid circulation of 2,000 cel fans and receives as many as 10 new subscriptions each day.

“It’s a good magazine. It’s something that is very worthwhile,” Howard Lowery said. “Collecting animation art is like buying a car. You should know what you’re doing.”

Printed in black and white with numerous photographs, In Toon! offers news and feature articles. The most recent edition included a profile of animator Tom Sito, who has worked on films such as “Beauty and the Beast” and “Roger Rabbit.” It also had blow-by-blow accounts of recent auctions, a how-to article on bidding and several stories on the history of animation.

Past issues have featured interviews with Matt Groening, creator of “The Simpsons,” and Joe Barbera of Hanna-Barbera.

Although Sheinhaus runs the quarterly’s business affairs from New York, Altyn and his wife, Dawn, handle the editorial work from their San Fernando Valley condominium, the walls of which are decorated with animation art. Altyn’s World War II-era collection fills the den. There is a rare cel of Hitler, from a Daffy Duck cartoon called “Daffy Commando.” There is an Uncle Sam cel from a Porky Pig cartoon. Dawn leads a guest into the bedroom, where she keeps a prized pencil drawing from “Lady and the Tramp.”

Although these and other animation pieces have increased in value during recent years, the Altyns warn readers away from buying cels as investments.

“Buy with your heart and not your wallet,” Dawn Altyn said.

“It’s something you should buy because you love it,” her husband said. “It should be something you want to hang on the wall.”

The term cel comes from the early years of animation, when studios painted characters on celluloid. They later switched to more-durable and less-flammable acetate.

Most recently, the Walt Disney Co. used computer animation to make its “Beauty and the Beast.” Disney, however, is marketing cels that were produced specifically for the collector’s market.

But the early animators had no idea that people would be bidding on their efforts decades later. Many studios either destroyed cels or wiped them clean for reuse.

According to Altyn, Disney animators would celebrate a film’s completion by lining the hallway of their offices with the cels, taking a running start and seeing how far they could slide on top of them.

“Dumbo” films were followed by another kind of recreation, he said. The gray paint used to color the elephant did not adhere strongly. So when the project was finished, Disney animators would “snap” the cels to see how far they could make the paint chips fly.

Cels are all the rarer, and all the more expensive, as a result of such neglect. And where there is money, there is likely to be deceit. Some dealers and private collectors try to pass copies off as originals or tell buyers that a cel is older or rarer than it actually is.

Toward his goal of educating collectors, Altyn has compiled a videotape library of classic animation. If a collector wants to verify that a cel is from a particular film or show, Altyn will try to match it against the video.

He also can estimate the age of a piece through identifying marks such as holes punched along the edges, which were used to align cels for filming.

Altyn learned about this sort of thing in college, where he studied to be an animator. The Brooklyn native ended up working in the music industry for 15 years but, after moving to Los Angeles, began collecting animation art.

A continent away, Sheinhaus started a collection as well. “A friend of mine had a couple pieces,” he recalled. “Just looking at the characters on the wall, there was an immediate connection to my childhood.”

Altyn and Sheinhaus met at a gallery where they both bought cels. The two decided to launch their magazine.

“John could provide all the expertise in the animation world,” said Sheinhaus, who works for a life insurance company. “What I brought to it was the entrepreneurial spirit. I could read off a whole list of ideas I’ve never followed through with, but with this one, there seemed to be a need for this kind of publication.”

In Toon! has progressed slowly, growing a few pages larger with each issue. Sheinhaus says he and Altyn have the luxury of taking their time because there isn’t a whole lot of competition.

“We can get our feet wet without drowning,” he said.

Altyn has dreams of a “real” magazine of many pages and color illustrations. But he, too, is willing to proceed cautiously, which is exactly how he advises beginners to build their animation art collection. He tells them to start with small, lower-priced pieces. Or, as Dawn Altyn puts it: “You don’t have to be a millionaire or get a second mortgage on your house.”

Altyn also suggests choosing a theme, concentrating on a certain cartoon character or animator, or a specific time period.

“Don’t just be a pack rat,” he said.

He offered another tip.

“I tell people to watch cartoons,” he said. “That’s something I do every morning. I watch for three hours.”

Subscription rates for In Toon! are $10 for four issues and $18 for eight issues. Call (818) 753-4804.