It was as if the cels themselves had come to life and were dancing on the screen in front of me. It was art. Not a representation or reproduction, but the art itself, moving and real. Of course, I knew it to be a reproduction, but the point is, a good photograph of two-dimensional art looks exactly like the original. Until they invent a projection system with as many elements as there are grains in a frame of 35mm film, that impression can't be duplicated with video.
Animation is an extension of the artform of drawing.
It deserves to be experienced that way, as moving images leaping straight from the artist's board. I would hate that experience to become a casualty of the digital era. One last item before I move on to the web picks. Last month, Anne Packrat griped about the treatment the manga strip Heartbroken Angels was receiving in Pulp . Perhaps the folks at Viz read the column, because there's plenty of strips in this month's issue.