Sunday Funnies: Perennial Favorites

For many of us, the Sunday funnies are a marker of a finished week, like Sunday dinner or NFL football. Since they first appeared at the end of the 19th century, “the funnies” have captured our childhood fantasies, expressed our private thoughts, and made us laugh out loud.

Yet, despite being an integral part of American culture, comic strips were not considered by the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC) to be appropriate stamp subjects until the issuance of Comic Strip Classics in 1995.

This pane of 20 stamps, marking 100 years of newspaper color comics, featured strips dating from the first half of the 20th century. Although postal officials had argued to include more current comics, hoping to appeal to a younger audience, CSAC insisted that the pane would only show strips originating between 1895 and 1945.

Nonetheless, Comic Strip Classics proved very popular, demonstrating the appeal of comics as stamp subjects. So in 2001, the U.S. Postal Service turned to another cartoon icon — "Peanuts." Within ten weeks, the entire press run of 125 million stamps had been sold.

Now, 15 years after color comic strips debuted on stamps, USPS has issued a second pane honoring the funnies. This time, the five designs in Sunday Funnies feature more contemporary strips, most of which are still in production today and beloved by readers of all ages.

For research, art director Ethel Kessler immersed herself in newspaper strips, books, comic books, and online resources. “In design there is definitely chaos before there is clarity,” she says with a laugh.

But the very familiarity of the subjects made designing the stamps a challenge: How do you select an image that must capture the essence of each comic strip from thousands of options?

“I didn’t want each stamp to be just a title panel,” Kessler explains. “It was really about the characters and the relationships. Dennis always seems to be running away after creating some sort of trouble; Archie is always vacillating between Betty and Veronica.”

There was also the overall visual rhythm. “If you had two characters in each stamp,” Kessler explains, “the pane might look too repetitive. So you have one stamp with one character, three with two characters, and one with three.”

Kessler stacked the stamps in vertical columns to bring order to a pane that features such different artistic styles. “And if you have a favorite, it makes it easier to find.”

Kessler also incorporated touches that evoke the newspaper origins of the strips. “Old comics had a huge halftone dot pattern required for the printing process,” she says. “I liked the texture that created, so I used a subtle large dot pattern in the blue background of the pane.”

She also added a serrated, newspaper-type edge above the title.

Vintage newspaper comics even inspired the stamp backgrounds. “In the old comic strips, the color soaked into the newsprint and appeared almost like watercolor. I wanted to convey some of that feeling, and using a softer, graduated tone keeps the backgrounds from getting in the way of the artwork.”

Several of the original artists not only approved the stamps but also influenced the final designs. Kessler explains that when the proposed Beetle Bailey stamp was sent to creator Mort Walker for approval, it was Walker himself who added the speech bubble around the title. “As if Sarge is yelling Beetle’s name,” Kessler says.

Newspaper readership might be on the decline, yet these characters endure and have developed legions of fans worldwide. Whether you hate dieting like Garfield, are girl-crazy like Archie, get into mischief like Dennis, have a rich fantasy life like Calvin — or, like Beetle, struggle in a world that often doesn’t make sense — you’ll find yourself in the Sunday Funnies.

And when you do, you’ll laugh out loud.