1) How long have you been collecting cels?

About a year.  Started with a $15 Umi from Anime-cel.com and snowballed.

2) How much do you spend on cels per month? (Average)

Depends.  Since I specialize in a few shows, amount spent varies with amount of cels and cash available, but if I had to calculate over the past year, it'd be about $150 or so.

3) What is your favorite cel? (Post pic)

Tough call between this and my signed Utena, but the one below...I about had a heart attack when Melissa showed up at my house with this one.  (Apologies for the seams--it took a few scanner passes to get all of it).

4) Assuming you buy cels off the internet - what is your favorite site to buy them from (not necessarily where you buy cels most regularly)?

I've had good luck with lots of dealers--Chaos, Anime-cel, Animanga, Taro, Animebox--so it's hard to pick a favorite.  From Asylum I've never bought cels but they were awfully kind to me on a Five Star Stories artbook at ACen last week.  I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Melissa of Miki's Junkjungle, who can go above and beyond call of duty in finding cool stuff, negotiating with certain dealers, etc.

5a) Do you concentrate on specific characters or series or both?

Both.  Biggest money drain is Battle Athetes TV, followed by Giant Robo.  Within Battle Athletes I've got two specialties: cels of Itchan, because I am Itchan, and cels of the characters on bikes, because mountain biking is the other big competitor for my discretionary income.

b) If you collect for a series, do you go through the trouble of finding at least one cel per character?

I'm thinking I may go ahead and try to get one of everyone from BA TV.  I'm about halfway there anyway.  Anyone got leads on a Gyubei or Kannoji?

6) Have you ever purchased a cel from EBay or Yahoo or some other auction site?

Nope.

7) Do you have family members who also appreciate cels?


Not really, but then again, I don't live within a thousand miles of any of my relatives.

8) Do you have friends who appreciate cels?

Heck yeah.

 9) In the space of this form box (i.e. the entire message cannot force scrolling either vertically or horizontally in the reply text box), please explain WHY you think  cels are so addicting - imagine you're trying to explain to someone why they're so great. 

Because there's just something neat about holding this piece o' plastic in your hand and thinking "ya know, so and so much time ago, some animator in Osaka or Tokyo or wherever painted this thing, and now it's in the hands of some goofy chick in Cambridge, Mass."  That or watching the series on DVD with frame by frame turned on and yelling "I've got that scene!"