What are Post-Production cels?

[saiyanprince]

Hi Everyone, I have a question. What are Post-Production cels? There are some Spider-Man cels on Ebay at the moment with the Marvel Stamp on them but they say Official Post-Production cels (they still come with a matching BG and Certificate of Auth.) Are they still used in production of the show possibly? Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks Lance Brown

[sensei]

In Japanese-produced animation art, post production cels (or relezu) are cels that are created by the studio (or by an artistic concern with whom they contract) from sketches that were actually used for CGI animation, which replaced cel-based animation for the most part ca. 2000. There are several kinds: the more desirable are one-of-a-kind and come with the actual production sketch (or douga) on which the cel is based. Others were done in "limited editions" of 200-300, and still others were machine-produced in larger quantities.

But since Spiderman was a US-based production that used cels, I'm not sure what a "post production cel" would mean in this case. I did a quick look on eBay and I see that there are listings both for cels used in production, which are called "OPC" or "Original Production Cel," and for those produced in "limited" quantities of 2500-3000, which they call "sericels." (Evidently these were inserted into some copies of the comic books to publicize the TV show.) Both of these come with the Marvel stamp and COA, though I'd assume that this would specify whether the cel was original production art or a limited-edition reproduction.

I'd guess that the ones you're looking at are sericels, i.e., reproduction cels. One listing notes that the background is nearly always a copy, even for an original production cel. But if you provide a link to one of the auctions, someone more knowledgable about US-based animation of the 90s could help more.

[saiyanprince]

Thanks for the info Sensei Here is a link to one Spidey cel I was interested in:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Venom-Spiderman-Ori ... dZViewItem

The seller has OPC (Orig. Prod. Cel) in his description yet the cel itself has a Marvel stamp on it which says "Original Post-Production Cel." I know of sericels but this cel looks like authentic production material.

[sensei]

I see the issue: the COA says that Marvel "certifies that this registered artwork is an original hand-painted
animation cel with a lasergraphic background art panel representative of those used in an episode from a
Marvel animated series . . . a truly authentic piece of animation history."

In other words, the cel is an actual cel from the series; the background is a copy, and not necessarily matching
or even from Spiderman.

For my 100 yen, the cel itself looks authentic enough, with a real-looking set of registration holes and sequence
numbers in the upper right corner. But, yes, that stamp gives me pause, particularly as the COA does not
seem to have anything that would definitely mate it with the item being sold. On the other hand, the
dealer has a clean record and obviously knows his Spiderman facts.

Kymaera? Backlotanimation?

[backlotanimation]

My ears were burning did I hear my name?

Yes the item on ebay is a production cel from what I see,Scene 96 cel number A-5 <-- maybe key. Marvel did keys on 1st,5th,7th,and 11th cel ect, But not always, I've seen a few whole scenes that were key cels.
Background number SP#9 C-9 <-- Spiderman Show number 9 BG # C-9 as for the BG I'm not sure if it's matching for this cel but it could be,If the drawing was with it I could tell you more,Bummer it's not.

saiyanprince, I'm not sure why the sticker says post production cel? Marvel did make some post production cels but I have never seen this one as a post production cel but I could be wrong. I do know that back a few years ago a bunch of copy stickers and certs were sold on ebay maybe someone stuck one of those on this cel in the past to make it look better?

About 6 months ago I turned in a dealer selling some of the marvel seri-cels as real production cels, he had the copy production stickers and certs that were sold a few years ago on ebay and he was trying to pawn them off as real production cels,He got the boot by ebay under that name but do to the rules he is back on ebay under a new name.Thats ebay for you.


I hope this helps you out some.

Roy (DBA)Backlotanimation