The state of the Anime Cel collecting community.

Didn't even realise there was a cel contest going on at AB, will have to suss that out later, haven't entered one before.

As for me, I have only been collecting for two and a bit years. Luckily enough I joined just as a heap of series I love were being auctioned off. With most those pieces now completely sold, I haven't really bought much. To me it almost seems as if animation studios aren't releasing as much of their sketches as they used to. Hence, with few shows having their pieces auctioned off, there are few things I want to buy.

As for Rubberslug, yeah it is dying. A product that is not maintained is a dying product. I have mentioned it in the past that I may be interested in helping improve this site. I have a degree in Computer Science so I am sure I would be able to work out how Jason has designed and written the website. Fixing common bugs and even stuff like the search bar shouldn't be to hard to work out from there. Finding time to do so, and even having Jason let me do so is another thing altogether, though.

*Steps up on Soapbox*

My beef with saying the community is dead because the site is dead. Is because a community is not the platform that we meet up on. But the people within it, regardless of how well RS is maintained or not all.

We the collectors make up the community, I have been around longer than RS. So I remember when we were all running around on different hosted sites, would I be sad if RS died? Hell ya! It's a great central meeting place, an easily accessible platform to see who is updating or not. Before RS, we all still met up on Anime-Beta and Animanga (suprisingly still running though no one really hangs there anymore).

It is our interactions, events, meeting up, bidding on auctions, cheering each other on, what makes this community. This is of course again my two cents, and I think with all the new collectors appearing we need to think more positively about the state of the community instead of focusing how things have been in the past. Things will change, things always change. What will keep us alive will be our willingness to to adapt to that change and keep on trucking!

I’ve been a member of this site since 2008, so I’m not one of the oldest collectors, but I’m not exactly from yesterday either. I’ve seen people come and go, I’ve seen the changes made to the site.

My personal feeling, about the site, is that if it’s run by just a single person, it’s inevitably going to crumble. I don’t know Jason, but I’m sure that he has a personal life, that doesn’t revolve only around cels, and I’m sure that other things often take priority. Also without sponsorship, this is not going to go anywhere. Think of it like the Metropolitan museum, they need funds to keep it running, have staff, and pay for maintenance, sometimes they even resolve to selling artworks for funding. That’s why a lot of the sites these days have introduced commercials, so that there’s income.

Putting the website aside, the hobby is struggling. The problem, in my opinion, lies greatly in the fact that the majority of young people have very little appreciation for art. They are more likely to go out and buy the latest smartphone than invest in any kind of art, or at least one that requires a lot of money. I feel like that will end up being a problem for antique auction houses as well, because as the seasoned collectors slowly disappear you will be left with all new people, who won’t appreciate things as much, and won’t be as invested. It’s just the new reality. I think education here plays a big part, and sadly people these days don’t known history, know about antiques, art etc., you’ve got to read to know that. Maybe because animation has a certain appeal for young folks things just might shift, but honestly as the shows get older people will start feeling like they’re outdated, and interest will decrease. Not to mention that, from an investment point of view, cels are a very questionable choice, because of the bad materials used.

So to sum up, with all the chaos happening in the world these days, with people’s financial difficulties, with people’s lack of education, lack of interest, lack of appreciation, things are looking rather bleak. I really didn't want to sound so negative, but it's just the feeling I'm getting. We can only hope for a Revival period, like the Egyptian and Etruscan one.

I think it's wonderful this thread is getting quite the input. So many interesting comments.

In the meantime, posting comments on blogs seems to be broken. I'm getting an error message.

Yes, Jason was great for putting this site up, but like Jadeduo said, no matter his reasons, he's pretty much abandoned it now. I know he said RS isn't going anywhere, but that just it, isn't it? It's not going anywhere. I can't see that as something positive, the internet is constantly evolving.
You can't breathe new life in a hobby, when it's fundamental website is on life support.

Personally I think it would be great if Rubberslug was to be handed over to a third party that will professionally maintain it and lift it into the current era.

Assuming a third party would be interested of course :3

I will still have to respectfully disagree, yes the site is not evolving and it would be great if we could get some work done on it. But seriously the amount of new collectors that have been joining up lately, have been really heartening to me.

There is almost a new collector showing up every week or so in the last month. If we continue to encourage peeps to stick around and keep up a positive attitude the community has a shot! Another trend I have been noticing is prices have been coming up. While this can be an indication of less on the market, I don't think that is the case. There is almost always at least one new thing up every week I am like must have! ^_^;; I think it is an indication of more interested bidders out there!

I doubt the third party will be an option as it seems to be important to Jason to keep the control of the site, I'm sure peeps have offered to help in the past, either monetarily or techy wise. And he has declined it, RS is still definitely his baby so until he lessens up the control over it we are going to be in stasis as to how the site will evolve.

If the comment posting is broken BTW, there is an open thread on Beta that we put errors on that get back to Jason so he can fix it real quick...