On Monday the United States Postal Service issued a set of ‘Forever’ stamps paying tribute
to Bugs Bunny on the occasion of his 80th (82nd?) anniversary.
Not the first time Bugs was so honored. In 1997 Bugs was the first of a five year project
putting Warner Bros. cartoon characters on United States postage stamps.
But this recent sheet is much more involved. From Merco Press:
[Kristin Seaver, chief information officer and executive vice president, U.S. Postal Service] was joined for the ceremony by Pete Browngardt, executive producer of “Looney Tunes Cartoons,” and Alex Kirwan, supervising producer of “Looney Tunes Cartoons.” The virtual stamp event can be viewed on the Postal Service’s Facebook and Twitter pages.
The stamp artwork was developed in partnership with Warner Bros. Consumer Products, featuring work from Warner Bros. Animation artists. The stamps show iconic moments of Bugs Bunny’s career. The Warner Bros. Animation artists also created the sketches on the back of the stamp pane. Greg Breeding was the designer, and William J. Gicker served as art director for the Postal Service.
At your local Post Office now!
Just bought these. Don’t waste your money. Mediocre re-imaginings of a once-great cartoon character. The images appear to be selected by committee and gussied up by folks determined to associate themselves with the brilliant animators of the past. Despite faux “construction lines” added to the so-called sketches on the reverse, these appear to be little more than lifeless tracings by art school dropouts or worse! Next time just use actual frames from the original cartoons and do real honor to Bugs and his creators.
Uh, you do know how stamps work, right?
As far as I can see, putting one of these “stamps” things in the upper right hand corner of an envelope would get the post office to deliver it to the location I’d have written in lower down on said envelope. So in what way could buying these possibly be “wasting my money”?
If I buy stamps that don’t feature any cartoon characters on them at all, am I thus wasting my money more thorougly or less so? Discuss. (Or not.)
These are “collectable” stamps. You know, for philatelists. I’m sorry you don’t understand that point, Dennis.
No need to state the obvious or be a smart aleck either. While any appropriate stamp issued by the great institutiion of the USPS will get your mail delivered generally on time and with a minimum of fuss, paying outside artists to re-design already completed artwork is silly – especially when they do a bad job. At a time when the current presidential administration (with the long time aid of many anti-government politicians) are gutting this cherished service, it is foolish to spend funds on what could otherwise be accomplished by most teenagers with decent image processing software.
Of course I understood the point, I just rejected it, specifically the word “waste.” (And yes, I used to be a stamp collector.)
I realize that if your chief interest in stamps is framing them or putting them in an album or such that for you there will be *better* stamps for you to spend your money on, but as long the inferior stamp still does the job stamps were actually *invented* for, I can’t agree that your money is actually “wasted” — just stick the disappointments on envelopes as you would any non-‘special’ stamp, use them up, and buy something else for your collection next time.