Rick Marschall on the comic strip anniversary commemorative postage stamps

The critical establishment, the cultural elite, still regards comics as a vulgar trifle instead of the vital -- and indigenous -- art form that it is.

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...the comics are a unique art form, a precious form of communication, a plastic medium of ideas, excitement, commentary, humor, and fantasy, and a marvelous mirror of the culture that produces them. Numbers alone do not confer status upon art forms, but there are some numbers worth considering here. Twenty millions of images have been produced in comics' century, testimony at least to the solidity of this fluid form. And numbers -- of readers, of production activities, of references -- count for something in a society where our culture is defined and continues to assert itself by such numbers. It is time to recognize that America is not a cultural cipher or (as the art-critic thugs propagate) that we must define our arts in terms of traditions of canvas, concert halls, ancient literature, and stages. Comics should not be crammed into the nearest semi-logical cubbyhole, there to be more easily denigrated, but rather should be seen as an independent and dynamic form. Let other, perhaps future, forms of expression claim to be "similar" to comics, or in the tradition of the strip form. As comics close out their first hundred years, we look ahead not just at a new century but a new millennium, and we should redefine our place in society, in cultural traditions, and be proud rather than apologetic for the comics' role -- both in the rich century just ending, and the exciting future.

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I have been among many who have long advocated such recognition by the Postal Service (in the old NEMO magazine I urged a petition- campaign for block-sets pairing cartoonists and their creations; the MoCA led cartoonists to advocate strip-stamps in their syndicated features; and so forth), but among the factors I thought doomed the prospects were the traditional arguments against comics as worthy of respect -- see above -- and visions of angry protestors picketing local post offices, their placards decrying taxpayers' money being spent on, yuk, comics.

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Sometimes stamp-sheets feature selvage -- information about the series printed on the larger sheet -- but for only the second time in US Postal history (the first being Legends of the West, currently in production too) stamps will feature information on the backs of the stamps, under the glue. I have been chosen to write this data, which will include facts about the creators, the start-dates of the strips, and miscellaneous details about the characters. Unfortunately the space is virtually postage-stamp size (actually, they will be oversized horizontal commemoratives) but we'll get the basics covered.

There will also be a collectors' book produced and sold through mail-order and the nation's 1600 post offices. I have been asked to write a history of the comics featuring the 20 strips of this series and their characters; so it will be a highlight narrative. But we will include other strips and characters, material about the larger movements in comics history; and the illustrations will be many, with 20 of them designed to merge with the stamps' images.

At deadline for this issue of Hogan's Alley the stamps are still being designed. In some cases I have nominated dozens and dozens of images for strip characters; and more than 15 designs have been changed in recent weeks from earlier dummies and mock-ups. (In spite of their marked-confidentiality, early prototypes have circulated.) The stamps will be released early in 1995, with a first-day of issue location yet to be decided at press time. Hogan's Alley readers will be informed of this and other details in our next issue.

Now to the 29-cent question: what strips will be featured? Here they are, the result of many nominations, long discussions, many levels of decisions, and input from designers, consultants, and postal authorities: The Yellow Kid; The Katzenjammer Kids; Little Nemo in Slumberland; Bringing Up Father; Krazy Kat; Rube Goldberg's Inventions; Toonerville Folks; Gasoline Alley; Barney Google; Little Orphan Annie; Popeye; Blondie; Dick Tracy; Alley Oop; Nancy; Flash Gordon; Li'l Abner; Terry and the Pirates; Prince Valiant; and -- stick with me here, it's still a debate at press time, and most readers will know where my vote is -- either Brenda Starr or Pogo.

There were some arbitrary rules imposed-for instance, about strips created subsequent to 1950 -- which left out many favorites like Peanuts, Dennis the Menace, B.C., Beetle Bailey, and Calvin and Hobbes. But neither stamp fans nor comics fans should despair. Another series could follow, and we have already begun discussions about comic-book character series; the stars of animation; political cartoonists' icons and subjects; and, again, the cartoonists themselves. Unlike postage stamps, dreams cannot be cancelled.

And as we witness this dream-come-true about recognition for the comics, let us all abandon the thought, so often expressed, that philately will get you nowhere.

[note: GROAN]