"Beauty and the (Plush) Beast" (batplush.gif, 630x435x2, 9957 bytes) is the fifteenth in a continuing series of fine Disney fanart drawings by Bob Ito . You may wish to save this description in a separate file for future reference. "There must be more than this pro-vin-cial life!" --Belle, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST From statements like these, it's apparent that Belle lived a pretty lonely life before she met the Beast. After all, she was shunned by the villagers as an oddball, and harried constantly by a boorish suitor whose only redeeming potential was as an Olympic hopeful in expectorating. And it's also true that she did often comfort herself with her imagination, where the faroff places, daring swordfights, magic spells, and princes-in-disguise found in her books came vividly to life. Of course, dreams of romance are best when they're shared. If this can't be done with The Real Thing (tm), as in Belle's case, then a stuffed animal makes a good substitute. :-) And so it is here, where we see Belle fast asleep, cuddling up contentedly with her favorite plush toy. Can't figure out what that is? Well, if the title of the drawing didn't give it away, consider the title of the book by her side. (Remember, this is Belle. She reads everywhere!) Now, there aren't too many swordfights or spells or princes in this book, but it does give her the means to earn the US$48 to buy the plush toy from the Disney Store. :-) (Don't worry if you don't understand the significance of the book title; it's sort of an inside joke on r.a.d. Ten Zillion Zorkmids to the first person to figure it out. :-) This image will be available shortly via anonymous ftp from cco.caltech.edu [131.215.139.20, 139.215.6.9]: /pub/disney/images/ito/, where previously posted drawings and descriptions reside. They're also available via the World Wide Web, on http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~dacut/fdc.html. Contact the archive maintainer, David Cuthbert for more details, and Bob for comments and queries on the drawings. Please ftp during off-peak hours if possible (4am-11am PST, GMT -0800). I am posting this image directly to the non-binary newsgroups r.a.d and r.a.a because it is very small, about the size of a longish text post. If you feel this is a problem, please let me know. If you would like to receive scans of future drawings as they become available (whenever Bob feels like doing 'em, and I get around to scanning and posting 'em :-) please drop me a line and I'll add you to the distribution list.