(MONEY Magazine) – If putting money behind a consummate failure sounds like looney tunes to you, consider the case of Hans Heidler. The 30-year-old store manager from Algonquin, Ill. is a collector of animation cels -- the clear sheets on which cartoon scenes are painted before filming. His favorite character is Wile E. Coyote, who is always unsuccessful in his efforts to bag the Road Runner. ''Things backfire on me too,'' says Heidler, who owns 25 Wile E. Coyote cels, ''so I can identify with him.'' In the seven years during which Heidler has been acquiring cels, however, Wile E. and the other Warner Bros. characters in his collection have been anything but losers. Their cels have appreciated by more than 300%. Heidler started investing in Warner cels, which were cheaper than Disney cels, when he was a senior at Northern Illinois University in De Kalb and a traveling cel exhibit visited the campus. His collection includes original production cels from movies and television specials of the 1970s and reproductions of scenes from earlier cartoons. Warner destroyed the bulk of the original cels from the 1940s and '50s when the company ran out of warehouse space. But collectors value the reproductions because they are drawn and signed by the cartoons' original creators. In all, Heidler owns 78 cels worth about $24,000. -- C.E.C.