Le Bulle d'Encre presents its april stamp

Every month, the French Association du Bulle D'encre publishes a limited edition vanity stamp (using the French Post Office Mon Timbre A Moi service) featuring art by French cartoonists and comic creators.  This month's stamp was created by Jason Dilukeba, creator of the new manga series, Ekeko.and features the illustration used for issue 1 of the book.

The stamp is published in a limited edition of 30 copies, and costs € 2,00.  Previous stamps, are still available in very small numbers from the BDE website.  Members get a € 0,50 on each stamp (all links in French).

Mauldin stamps issued today

The great World War II cartoonist Bill Mauldin has stamps issued for him today. This is actually the 2nd Mauldin stamp as his characters Willie and Joe were on one of the WW2 anniversary map sheets. Here's what the US Postal Service is selling - if anyone knows of a special cancellation, please let me know.

Belgium Youth Philately 2010 : Largo Winch

Last month the Belgian post office issued the latest edition of its annual Youth Philately stamp, featuring popular comic heroes.  The tradition started in 1979 with a stamp celebrating 50 years of Tintin, and from 1984 onwards Belgian's most famous comic heroes have graced a special stamp.

This year Jean Van Hamme and Philippe Francq's millionaire adventurer Largo Winch was selected for the stamp, which is published as a single issue and in a sheet of ten stamps with an additional illustration by Franq.

Donald Duck 3000

 The Dutch weekly Donald Duck celebrates its 3000th issue next month, and this is celebrated with a quite unique set of stamps.  On april 6th, a first set will be offered to the public, consisting of a sheet of 10 stamps and a special cover page containing the first page of a special Donald Duck story.  For a year and a half, two similar sets will be made released every month, resulting in a complete unique story.

Additionally, a separate set of three postcards with assorted stamps is available on the TNT Post website.

Cartoon illustration of stamps from NY Times

Here's a nice drawing from the March 17, 2010 New York Times by David Gibson, illustrating letters to the editor about US postal service cuts.

Mr. Zip

The Silver Lining has collected a few typical appearances of USPS's Mr. Zip character.

Forever stamps

Roz Chast's Forever stamps, courtesy Bookofjoe.