CE -- A lifetime of collecting comic related material :: Disney Studio Pt. 7 - 1930s Publicity Drawings for Mickey and Donald Shorts *

Inked Publicity Drawing for The Brave Little Tailor, September, 1938

Artists: Hank Porter (Penciller) , Tom Wood ? (Inker)

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Inked Publicity Drawing for The Brave Little Tailor, September, 1938 Comic Art

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Comic Book Cover Based on 1938 Publicity Drawing

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Inked Publicity Drawing for Sea Scouts, June, 1939

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Publicity Drawing for The Fox Hunt, 1937

Artwork Details

Title:	Inked Publicity Drawing for The Brave Little Tailor, September, 1938
Artist:	Hank Porter (Penciller)
Artist:	Tom Wood ? (Inker)
Media Type:	Pen and Ink
Art Type:	Animation
For Sale Status:	NFS
Views:	4,015
Likes on CAF:	0 1
Comments:	0
Added to Site:	6/2/2006
Comic Art Archive:

Description

From 1934 until about 1940, a small group of Disney artists produced artwork for use in publicizing the newest Disney short cartoons. Six (or sometimes 12) horizontal drawings were made for each cartoon, primarily for the production of publicity stills that would be shown in movie theater lobbies. One vertical drawing would be made for the a movie poster for many but not all cartoons. After the very finished and detailed pencil drawings were made, each would be reproduced in ink on white card stock, and these inked images would be the ones actually photographed in producing the stills/posters. All of these drawings are extremely rare, but the finished inked drawings are the rarest of all. In nearly 30 years of collecting this art, I have seen less than 50 of the inked drawings. In my opinion, this inked version of a drawing of Mickey and Minnie Mouse from the 1938 short, The Brave Little Tailor, is the greatest of them all. This is one of the most recognizable of all images of Mickey, and all the many uses of this image began in this drawing. One of the more recent uses of art clearly based on the 1938 original is the cover of Gladstone's Mickey Mouse No. 246 (April 1989). Inside the front cover of the comic, it states" "Front cover artist unknown," but in fact that artist was Hank Porter, who signed one of the six pencil drawings for this cartoon, which I also own.

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The Story of Inked Disney Publicity Drawings Pt. 6

Like so many collectors of comic and animation art who enter the markets with big splashes and very intensive buying, Harbert Black either lost interest in the art or encountered some sort of financial difficulty. After accumulating a number of fine pieces of Disney art, including a rare sketch of Mickey Mouse by Walt Disney himself [for which he paid almost $100,000], Mr Black dumped all or almost all of this collectin through a single-owner sale at Sothebys. Included were the Mickey's Polo Team, On Ice, Mickey's Steamroller, Gulliver Mickey, Wise Little Hen, and one of the Band Concert drawings from the 1989 auction at Christie's.

I really didn't think I had any chance of buying any of these, even the second time around. The auction markets generally don't like seeing pieces of art that have been for sale in the recent past, but these inked drawings were so rare and from such important cartoons that I expected them to still fetch strong prices. I didn't even bid, either live or on the phone...But I did leave bids on the book for the On Ice and Mickey's Polo team, just in case. This means that I instructed Sotheby's to bid on my behalf up to $3,200 on each lot. In the past, I had almost no success with such commission bids, so I basically forgot about the auction. I could not believe it when I received an invoice from Sotheby's a few days later for my successful bid of $3,200 plus premium and tax on The Mickey's Polo Team! Quite a drop from the #13,500+ that Harbert Black had paid two years earlier, let alone the multiple bids above my own in 1989. But I have always seen myself as being similar to Tobey Tortoise [as well as the Grasshopper!] -- slow and steady wins the race.

This collecting attitude was again vindicated almost a decade later, when I bought the great inked drawing from Mickey's Steamroller from a dealer friend -- I paid about what it had sold for in the Black sale, but at a time when there wasn't so much competition for my money. I finally had a great collection, perhaps the greatest, of the fabulous inked drawings, including a lot of depth in both Mickey and Donald as well as Silly Symphony cartoons. I can't think of any new examples that have turned up in the last 30 years, although a few drawings from the 1989 auction have re-sold and a trove of inked illustrations for the 1935 McCay books on the Tortoise and the Hare and The Robber Kitten is apparently still out there --- more in the next part of this narrative.

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	C E
Joined:	April 2006
Last Login:	August 2025
Country:	UNITED STATES
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