Inked Publicity Drawing for Mickey's Steamroller, June, 1934

The Story of Disney Inked Publicity Drawings, Pt. 1

These drawings done with India ink on heavy, strathmore paper, were the actual images which were photographed to produce publicity still photographs, one-sheet cartoon posters, and book illustratipons.They are rarer than the pencil drawings on which they were based, and they seldom appear for sale -- I haven't seen one on the market for decades. But, between the late 1970s and the 1990s a number of these wonderful drawings appeared for sale, and I always did what I could to acquire as many as possible.

I first saw examples of the inked drawings at the same time I first saw pencil publicity art, at Collectors Book Store in the late 1970s. They had two inked drawings for Hockey Champ, as well as three drawings which were inked over pencils from Billposters and one done in the same way for for Donalds Outboard Motor. I eventually bought both of the Hockey Champ drawings. I still have one, which I consider to be the best and which was the most expensive of the many publicty drawings available at the store. A friend later wanted the ther one, which shows donald buried up to his chest in snow and holding a puck in one hand with a newphew on his head, holding a hockey stick and winding up to hit the puck. Another inked drawing from this cartoon has flated around for a long time. It shws donald hlding a trophy, but the trophy is on a separate piece of paper and was glued onto the paper with the image of Donald.

I also bought the later drawings from Donald's Outboard moter and one from Billposters. The Billposters drawing fills up most of the paper on which it was drawn. The two which I passed up had much smaller image fields. One was dentical to the large version I purchased. The other showed a windmill and the characters being pursued by the goat which tormentedDonald and Goofy in the cartoon. It was great, but I thought that the images were just too small. I later bought a similar inked drawing from Outboard motor out of a second, much smaller Basmajian offering at Sotheby's (along with my inked Litle Hiawatha drawing in the same lot). I sold the Donald to the same friend who bought the Hockey Champ. Those wee the only two publicity drawings in that Sotheby's sale.