Straume - Flow : 2025 Latvia

2025-Feb-27 Latvia

Flow (Straume) is a 2024 independent animated adventure film directed by Gints Zilbalodis, written and produced by Zilbalodis and Matīss Kaža. A Latvian, French, and Belgian co-production, it features no dialogue and follows a cat trying to survive along with other animals in a seemingly post-apocalyptic world as the water level dramatically rises.

Jersey (Leeds) Devil - Pinelands New Jersey

Jersey Devil - 1970 Cadillac Local Post

In Southern New Jersey and Philadelphia folklore in the United States, the Jersey Devil, also known as the Leeds Devil, is a legendary creature, or cryptid, said to inhabit the forests of the New Jersey Pine Barrens in South Jersey. The creature is often described as a flying biped with hooves, but there are many variations. The common description is that of a bipedal kangaroo-like or wyvern-like creature with a horse- or goat-like head, leathery bat-like wings, horns, small arms with clawed hands, legs with cloven hooves, and a forked or barbed tail. 

The devil's mother is usually a woman named Leeds, or "Mother Leeds" of Burlington, dating back to 1735

1973 Sojex cachet reused in 2002

2024 Galloway NJ - Derwin Mack cachet (Facebook)

The Art of Disney : 2007 Magic

2007-Aug-16 American Gardens Theater, Epcot Center, Walt Disney World, in Orlando, Florida

The Art of Disney – Magic: The Postal Service™ issued The Art of Disney: Magic commemorative stamps in four designs, honoring the art of magic as imagined by Walt Disney and his studio animators. The stamps feature Disney characters: Dumbo and Timothy Mouse. Peter Pan and Tinker Bell. Mickey Mouse as “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” Aladdin and Genie.

Digital color postmark: 

Commemoraive postmarks:

Captain Harlock : 2019 Italy

2019-Nov-12 Torino Italy

Space Pirate Captain Harlock, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Leiji Matsumoto. It was serialized in Akita Shoten's Play Comic from January 1977 to June 1979. The series follows the titular Captain, an outcast who has turned into a space pirate to rebel against Earth's government and humanity's general apathy.

Space Pirate Captain Harlock was adapted into an anime television series in 1978 directed by Rintaro and produced by Toei Animation. An animated film adaptation of the same name was released in 2013.

50th Anniversary Weekly Shonen : 2009 Japan

2009-Mar-17 Gatchapon (Tensai) pictorial postmark

Japan Post issued two sheets of stamps in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of weekly comics for boys. Each sheet contained 10 stamps paired with a companion label. All stamps contain the same value:

Man; Tiger Mask; Kyojin no Hoshi; Karate Baka Ichidai; GeGeGe no Kitaro; Ai to Makoto; Tensai Bakabon; Cyborg 009; Ashita no Jo; Tonda Kappuru.

Tree of the World - Croatia : 2022

2022-May-09 Croatia - Europa: Stories and Myths: The Tree of the World, (Bear with antlers and man) and (white hawk and ladybug)

Tree of the World is a Croatian myth about the structure of the universe. Ancestors believed the universe around them was divided into two basic elements, according to which they divided everything that exists into heaven and earth. Up and down. Light and darkness. What connected the heaven and the earth was the vast "Tree of the World" as the axis that held everything together.designed by multimedia artist Zdenko Bašić 

Jet-Pack : Bell-X-1

Just a doodle for fun, I am still waiting for my jet-pack - R Robinson

c1980s Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson - always one of my favorites

Twilight Zone - Rod Serling

2009-Oct-02 Binghamton NY postmark celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Twilight Zone 

The Twilight Zone is an American fantasy science fiction horror anthology television series created and presented by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from October 2, 1959, to June 19, 1964. Each episode presents a standalone story in which characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an experience described as entering "the Twilight Zone", often with a surprise ending and a moral. 

There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone— Rod Serling

Legend of the Pêro Botelho : 2022 Europa Stories & Myths

 

2022-May-09

Azores’ Legend of the Pêro Botelho illustrated by Jorge Macedo

Silence is what Pêro Botelho gets back in return whenever he begs “Get me out of here! Get me out of here!”, from the bottom of the Furnas cave, on the island of São Miguel, where he has been trapped since immemorial time. 

A man of deplorable character, Pêro Botelho had the habit, like the other inhabitants of the region, of boiling wicker and corn in volcanic calderas of boiling water. It was more common, however, to use its mud to cure various diseases, such as rheumatism. 

One day, when going there to find the balsamic material, Pêro Botelho lost his footing and fell into the caldera. He attempted an appeal for help, but no one would have heard him. And he was never seen again. The only sign of life would be the cry for a hypothetical rescue.

The residents of Povoação began to call the smoking orifice "Caldeira de Pêro Botelho", or "Pêro Botelho’s Caldera".

Theodor Kittelsen - Norway : 1972

Smørbukk (Buttball)

Trollet som lurer på hvor gammel han er (The troll that wonders how old he is)

White Bear King Valemon

Theodor Severin Kittelsen (1857 – 1914) Norwegian artist. He is one of the most popular artists in Norway. Kittelsen became famous for his nature paintings, as well as for his illustrations of fairy tales and legends, especially of trolls.

Gasoline Alley - Frank King : 1995 Comic Strip Classics

1995-Oct-01 Boca Raton FL

Gasoline Alley – Farnk King (1883-1969) It began as a panel about men's interest in autos in 1981, but Gasoline Alley evolved to become a strip about the life and growth of average Americans. It was the first major strip where characters grew up in real time. After King's death the strip was taken over by Bill Perry (Sunday strips only, 1951–1975) Dick Moores (1956–1986) Jim Scancarelli (1986–present) - © Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Mickey Mouse - The Band Concert - Romania

The Band Concert is a 1935 animated short film produced in 3-strip Technicolor by Walt Disney Productions and released by United Artists. The 73rd short film in the Mickey Mouse series and notable as the first in the series to be produced in color

Directed by Wilfred Jackson, with music adapted by Leigh Harline, the action follows a small music band, conducted by Mickey Mouse, which struggles through a distraction-filled public performance. Clarence Nash provides the voice of Donald Duck, the only speaking character. The film remains among the most highly acclaimed of the Disney shorts.

Band Concert - Czyl's  Penny Post (local post) stamp

Hans Christian Andersen - Monaco : 1980

Hans Christian Andersen (1805 – 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales.

Andersen's fairy tales, consisting of 156 stories across nine volumes, have been translated into over than 125 languages.  His most famous fairy tales include The Little Mermaid, The Princess and the Pea, The Shepherdess and the Chimneysweep, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Little Match Girl, and The Nightingale as depicted on the 1980 stamp issues from Monaco. Other tories include The Ugly Duckling, The snow Queen, Thumbelina and The Emperor's New Clothes. Many of Andersen's stories have inspired ballets, plays, and animated and live-action films.

Puss in Boots - France : 1997

Puss in Boots is a European fairy tale about an anthropomorphic cat who uses trickery and deceit to gain power, wealth, and the hand in marriage of a princess for his penniless and low-born master.

The oldest written telling is Costantino Fortunato (Italian for "Lucky Costantino") by Italian author Giovanni Francesco Straparola, included in The Facetious Nights of Straparola (c. 1550–1553). In this version, the cat is a disguised fairy who helps his owner, a poor boy named Costantino from Bohemia, in earning the princess' hand by duping a king, a lord, and many commoners. Another version was published in 1634 by Giambattista Basile with the title Cagliuso. The most popular version of the tale was published in French in 1697 by Charles Perrault (1628–1703), a retired civil servant and member of the Académie française. - Wikipedia

Children's Stories - Germany : 2001

Germany 2001 Youth Welfare Fund : Characters from Children's Books featuring Pinocchio; Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn; Heidi and Peter; Jim Knopf (Jim Button); Pippi Longstocking

Bigfoot - Sasquatch

1948 Bigfoot TX - Cachet of a big foot with a stamp to honor those who served in the armed forces during the World War II. Courtesy of the Lew Anvil Collection (TSHA)

2021-Aug-20 Palmer AK - Alaska State Fair

Bigfoot, also commonly referred to as Sasquatch, is a large, hairy, mythical humanoid creature said to inhabit forests in North America, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. Bigfoot is featured in both American and Canadian folklore, and since the mid-20th century has become a cultural icon, permeating popular culture and becoming the subject of its own distinct subculture. 

The Yeti, also commonly referred to as the Abominable Snowman in Western popular culture, is a large, hairy, mythical humanoid ape-like creature purported to inhabit the Himalayan mountain range in Asia.