A SPECIAL REPORT: ANIMATION

TOONS: Walt Disney invented feature animation in 1937 with “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” On June 21, the Burbank-based Disney will release its 34th animated feature, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” Stop-motion animation was used in “James and the Giant Peach,” coming April 12 from Disney. Director Henry Selick is an alumnus of Valencia’s CalArts, the premier school for animation.

RENAISSANCE: DreamWorks SKG, Fox, Turner, MGM and Warner Bros. all have animated features in production. . . . Computer animation is booming. “The industry has taken off so incredibly, we’ve gone monthly in response,” said Sarah Baisley, editor in chief of Animation magazine in Agoura Hills. The 10-year-old magazine, with a circulation of 40,000, covers all aspects of the field.

WOMEN, TOO: Traditionally, animation has been monopolized by men. Brenda Chapman of Glendale is the first woman to direct a major animated feature (with Simon Wells and Steve Hickner). . . . Her project: “The Prince of Egypt,” the first animated feature from DreamWorks, which is building an animation “campus” in Glendale. Expect the Moses epic late in 1998.

CELS FOR SALE: Twenty years ago, five galleries in the country sold animation art. Now 600 do. Howard Lowery Gallery in Burbank holds auctions every few months. On the block April 28 is a rare cel from 1935’s “Mickey’s Man Friday” that is expected to bring up to $25,000. The short was pulled because of racial stereotyping.