Re: SWAT Kats animation art, more thereof

From: Ed Rudnicki <erudnick_at_pica.army.mil>
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 96 13:51:14 EDT

>>H-B has a gallery program, but will sell to just about any gallery that
>>orders their minimum amounts. With increasing sales quotas, the H-B
>>Animation sales staff have been known to sell to card shops, frame shops, and
>>I've been told even flea marketers.
>>
>>Steve Grossfeld
>>Moderator
>
>Yeah, though some of these outlets may appear to "cheapen" the product
>in some fashion, we the consumer should realize that higher volume often
>brings lower unit pricing. That is, unless you're Disney!

It's not so much volume as whether the outlet belongs to a
"preferred gallery" plan or not. With Disney the expected markup is
100 %, and most galleries will charge this. Some, however, prefer to
get their profits through volume, and even sell to other galleries
who can still undercut the "preferred gallery" prices.

It looks like we'll be in good shape with the SK cels, as H-B
apparently doesn't have anywhere near the network that Disney has.


>> Think about all the people who read *that*. And in regards to the
>>possibility that you individually may not be able to afford a Kats cel, I
>>suggest calling the number anyway. As the prices and lack of Mook artwork
>>show, the Kats cels release is far from an ideal one, H-B needs to
>>understand how the artwork's release would best be prioritized, they welcome
>>any opinions, and need to hear that there *are* SWAT Kats fans out there.
>
>One comment on this Mook-Hanho thing. I don't know for certain that
>they're releasing only the Hanho, but earlier I'd heard from a third party
>that if cels were going to be released, they'd only be the Hanho ones for
>reasons unspecified (someone else suggested that the Mook ones were
>all destroyed in the Orient, but I've heard junk like this before). Anyway, that

OTOH, this _does_ happen. The studios are there to animate the
material, first and foremost. In many cases when they are tasked to
send over cels they pretty much throw in material at hand until the
specified quota is filled, without regard to artistic value, leaving
it up to the company back home to cull what's sent over. The rest
then get chucked. I see this with the TLM TV cels; I see a _lot_ of
material, and there's a lot of duplication from certain eps/scenes,
while there's _nothing_ from others. I hope the Mook cels survived,
but there's no guarantee they did.

I guess we'll just wait and see. And hope.




Ed

Received on Tue Apr 09 1996 - 14:41:14 PDT