Personal thing, but still nicely Furry we think… Today your ever-loving ed-otter and his ever-loving pine marten life-mate went to a viewing party in Los Angeles for the P-22 Celebration of a Life event. Don’t know about P-22? He was a wild cougar from the Santa Monica mountains in Southern California, who became quite famous for somehow crossing two major freeways without getting killed, who ended up living in LA’s well-known Griffith Park for more than a decade. Below is a very, very famous picture of the cat himself “posing” in front of the Hollywood sign. He became a much-loved local celebrity, until a tragic encounter with a car injured him to the point that authorities found it best to euthanize him last year. How celebrated was he? We couldn’t get in to the main event saluting his life, as it sold out The Greek Theater — in just two hours. More signs of his fame: There is a movement afoot to have his likeness put on a U.S. Stamp.

image c. 2023 National Geographic

Monday, July 27 marks the 80th anniversary of the theatrical release of the animated short film "A Wild Hare", part of the Merry Melodies series of shorts produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions for the Warner Bros. film studio, which featured the debut of an at the time unnamed lapine (called a "wabbit" by his rhotacism afflicted co-star) who would soon be known as Bugs Bunny. This character would become somewhat popular over the last eight decades.

To celebrate the world's most famous bunny's birthday, the United States Postal Service has released a set of ten stamps featuring Bugs Bunny in multiple outfits he's worn in his over 168 starring roles in the original Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies 1930-1969 run; and that's not counting cameos there and starring roles in cartoons outside that run. Featured outfits include his barber's outfit from "Rabbit of Seville", his Tea-Totaller team uniform from "Baseball Bugs", his basketball team jersey for the Tune Squad from the movie Space Jam, and, in one of two featured drag get-ups, his disguise from often-cited-as-best-cartoon-EVER "What's Opera, Doc?". Ironically not featured is his standard outfit of au naturel except a pair of white gloves; disappointingly, neither is his fox fursuit from "Foxy by Proxy" .

The U.S. Postal Service is back with a collection of "Sunday Funnies", including characters from Calvin and Hobbes and Garfield. [tip: Earthfurst]

The stamps officially go on sale July 16, but are available for pre-order.

C&H fans might also like this interview with Bill Watterson, an event so rare it led to an interview with the interviewer.

The US Postal Service is promoting a "Furry. Friendly." service on its front page; a set of animal-rescue stamps designed to heighten awareness of the need to adopt shelter pets.

A pane of 20 stamps costs $8.80 and includes ten designs. Notecards, catalogs and press sheets are also on sale.

Read more: Project overview, photography details and rescue stories in a special edition of USA Philatelic.

http://anthrozine.com (the zine proper)
http://anthrozine.com/site/support.html (donations)

Quentin "Editor-for-life of ANTHRO" Long here with an announcement that some of you may find interesting -- particularly those people who send a lot of stuff through the US Postal Service. As it happens, you can get legitimate, genuine US postage printed up with your own graphics... and I've done just that with STRAIGHTAWAY, the nifty "centaur + horse race" picture that Lucius Appaloosius did for the cover of ANTHRO #2. Again, this is genuinely valid US postage you can put on letters or package or whatever other mail you send. "Sounds great," I hear you ask, "but how do I get my hands on these stamps?"