technical question or HELP!

I have been roaming around the web and have found some clip art that I like.  So naturally I save it, run my virus thingy on the folder, then open it.  This is where my problem is.  I get the message "no preview available", so I think I'll just print it to see what it is, it doesn't want to print either.  I did a cut/paste on one piece of clip art from the site to my e-mail, then saved it.  It worked great that way.  But I don't think I should do it that way (couldn't I pick up a virus that way?).  Can anyone tell me why this is happening?  I have gotten animated gifs from the same site with no problem.  (Actually it seems that this happens no matter where I get clip art.)