Artwork from the Brooks collection

Got an interesting mail from Leslie Brooks the other day. As some of you might know he's been collecting and dealing in animation art since the early 1970s. Among his personal favorites have been the “gag” drawings that the animators draw of each other and the other personnel at the studio. Over the years he's accumulated hundreds of them (not just Disney). Now, he's decided to thin out the collection and sell some of it.

Since I bet many people are interested in seeing these drawings, Leslie gave me his OK to show them here on the blog. Beneath every drawing is a short description written by him, and if you are interested in purchasing any of them just send Leslie a mail at:
wabbithole at comcast dot net

Now, bring on the artwork!:)


CALL ME WALT – A preliminary cover for Jack Kinney’s book “Walt Disney and Other Assorted Characters”. As you can see, his working title for the book was “Call Me Walt”. It is drawn on a 8.5 x 11 inch sheet. $500




DISNEY’S INFERNO – A great gag drawing by Floyd Norman. It’s one of my personal favorites among the gag drawings I have. Drawn on a 12-field Disney animation sheet. $300




FOOD CART – A drawing by Webb Smith done on a Disney storyboard sheet. I doubt that anyone will ever know who the girl is but the gag is obviously that the Porter is angry because she has brought her own lunch on the train. It’s very well drawn. Very cute drawing. $150




FOSTER GIRLS – a Freddy Moore drawing with a caricature of Ward Kimball staring at all the nude women on the beach. The Gae Foster Girls were an “all girl review” popular in the early 1940s up through the end of the 1950s. Ward must have had a “thing” for them so Fred did this little homage to them. $1500




GIRL MIRROR – A Sid Thorne original. I don’t know very much about this one but it’s a nice drawing that Sid did for fellow animator Fred Kopietz. $150




NUDE BLUE HEELS – A drawing by Paul Murry done while he was at Disney. This drawing is $150




SNAKE GAG – Another Floyd Norman drawing both about & for Fred Kopietz. It’s a VERY long story but Fred used to go to Arizona as often as he could. He retired there after leaving Disney in the 1960s. He was constantly having run ins with animals and cared about them very much. Even, apparently, this snake. $100




WOMEN WEARING PANTS – A drawing by Walt Kelly of POGO fame. Like Dennis the Menace creator, Hank Ketcham, Walt Kelly worked at Disney in the 1940s. You can already see the “Kelly style” in this drawing. One of the better gag pieces I have - $750



The last 3 are all from Warner Brothers artist Jean Blanchard. Blanchard was in the McKimson unit. He 2 claims to fame are that she was one of the first (if not THE first) of the women animators. The other is that she drew the Bugs Bunny model sheet that became the standard for Bugs in the late 1940 and through the early to mid 1950s.



She did a Christmas Card every year. The first 2 images in this group are from her 1947 card. One of the people in the card is Cal Dalton the other is probably either Dick Bickenbach or I. Ellis. Unfortunately, I have not been able to pin this down for certain but there’s no one left alive to really know. The package consists of the finished art for the card and the preliminary for the interior illustration. The card drawing opens up to 11” x 17”. The prelim is a 12-field Warner animation sheet. - $500

The last one is the art and the printed card for her 1941 or 1942 Christmas Card. That one is $350.