Curious George Goes to the Post Office

[beamjockey]

Fandom's postman Harry Andruschak points out a list of the stamps that will be issued by the U.S. Postal Service in 2006.

Highlights:

Favorite Children's Book Animals.

Wonders of America: Land of Superlatives. Probably nice, but it will be hard to measure up to the U-Haul "weird science" series of rental-truck graphics.

Distinguished American Diplomats, which led me to learn about Hiram Bingham IV. (I already knew about his dad, Hiram Bingham III, discoverer of the lost city of Macchu-Picchu, autogiro pilot, and governor, for a single day, of Connecticut.)

Ten DC Comics heroes. Half of the pane of 20 will be portraits of the characters; the other half will show individual comic book covers devoted to their exploits. The characters include Aquaman, Batman, The Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Plastic Man, Supergirl, Superman and Wonder Woman.

Four depictions of the accomplishments of Ben "Tercentenary Lad" Franklin.

Holiday Snowflakes, from photomicrographs by physicist Kenneth Libbrecht.

Comments

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

I will be purchaseing the DC comic heroes and the Snowflakes for framing. I wonder if I should pre-order?

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Over on Mark Evanier's site, there's a handsome mockup of a Herbie stamp. Want one. Beautiful.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Cooool!

An interesting interpretation of the rules, I see.

[asfi.livejournal.com]

The USPS stamp selection criteria state "Stamps or stationery shall not be issued to promote or advertise commercial enterprises or products." I think under any reasonable interpretation of this rule, the DC comics sheet would fail. If it weren't for the USPS copyright, it would be easy to mistake the stamp sheet as as DC Comics publication. If the USPS wanted to honour comic book superheroes they should have done it honestly, and included Marvel and all the rest.

This complaint applies equally well to the Disney, Warner Bros., and similar marketing-friendly issues.

Granted, Canada Post is no shining paragon of virtue (e.g. two national hardware store chains have been honoured, and of course these stamps have been sold in their respective stores) but at least they don't ignore any rules against it. Because, well, there aren't any that prohibit such blatant shilling. The requirement that stamp subjects should "enhance the high regard for Canadian stamps and Canada in Canadian and international philatelic circles" ought to count for something, but when "Canadian Tire Money" is a national institution a Canadian Tire commemorative stamp isn't far behind.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Kind of a medeocre list.

B