Elsa Charretier postal labels get fancy

She had been creating simple drawings for them for years, but her recent print club mailing has this lovely Batgirl. Details on the subscription at https://www.patreon.com/elsacharretier

Designing Herblock's Bill of Rights stamp

 In 1966, Herbert "Herblock" Block designed a stamp about the US Bill of Rights, which was issued on July 1, 1966. Recently I was shown the following article on his process for designing it. 

On the Record: Bill of Rights; 5-cent commemorative issued July 1, 1966 at Miami Beach, Fla. [aka Herblock Designs a Stamp].

Belmont Faries

S.P.A. Journal 30 (3; November 1967); cover, 163-170

It's worth quoting part of the article now.

The stamp's designer, also a speaker raised the question of how the Bill of Rights would fare if it were up for ratification today, quoting critics who ask 'Must our government be weak in the face of men accused of crime, who demand legal advice; weak before those who take the fifth amendment, weak before those who openly express differences with government policy even in time of war?

"The answer", he said, "is that the restriction imposed on government by the Bill of Rights - these so-called weakness of our government in relation to the rights of the individual person, of the poorest, the meanest or the most misguided of its people -- these are in fact our nation's greatest strength."

Update: the photograph from the cover is in the Library of Congress, but only available at low-resolution unless you visit. Thanks, Sara Duke!

SpongeBob SquarePants stamps coming sometime this year

SpongeBob SquarePants Date & Site TBD | PSA pane of 16 stamps Click to see full pane. SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated television series created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. Each episode chronicles the adventures of the perpetually optimistic and generous main character SpongeBob SquarePants and his aquatic friends in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom. Only a month after its TV premiere in 1999, the show became the highest-rated and most viewed animated Saturday morning program that year, beating Pokemon. Its popularity made it a multimedia franchise and the highest rated Nickelodeon series. SpongeBob SquarePants has won a variety of awards including six Annie Awards, eight Golden Reel Awards, four Emmy Awards, two BAFTA Children's Awards, and a record-breaking twenty-one Kids' Choice Awards. A Broadway musical based on the series opened in 2017 to critical acclaim.

U.S. Stamp Design: Infamous American Felons by Daniel Boris

I have in the past printed out similar cartoons and used them to mail an empty envelope to myself.