The Ephemerist

Finally, a nice sheet from France, by J.-C. Mézières. Next month I’ll try to post more interesting stuff, more regularly.

I’m currently trying to catch up with my blogging by posting some gratuitious scans from my stamp collection. Today’s item is this year’s “Youth Philately” issue by the Belgian Post Office. it features Jacques Martin’s Alix.

Alix is a series of books in the Franco-Belgian adventure tradition, focusing on the adventures of a young foundling from Gaul who is adopted by a Roman gentleman and travels around the Roman Empire with his young friend, the Egyptian boy Enak. It has been a while since new books were published in this series, which makes you wonder whether next time the Post Office will actually choose a currently running book ?

Last year the Belgian Post Office dedicated their annual “Youth Philately” issue to the hit comic XIII, a long running political action mystery by Jean Van Hamme and William Van Cutsem. It’s currently being published in the US as well. Especially the first story arc (roughly albums 1 to 6) are a good read, but overall it never surpasses run-of-the-mill spy thrillers. Nice stamps, though, and a nice sheet too.

As promised earlier, here are the Summer stamps Ever Meulen created for the Belgian Post Office in 2005. I kinda like the sideways orientation.

He did it before with Infinite crisis, and once again Chris’s Invincible Super-Blog saves you a wad of cash, by summing up Marvel’s Civil War “event” in 30 seconds. Neat !

Welcome to the story is a very interesting experiment. First of all, it’s a work in progress, with a meandering story that changes course every day. The cool part about it is that it engages the reader in the story by asking him to submit pictures of himself. These pictures are then used as reference material for characters in the story.

Flog!’s Jacob Covey links to the Ephemerist, and calls us “a good pop blog” ! Thanks, Jacob !

Incidentally, Eric Reynolds traces the sources of the Polaroid ads mentioned earlier, to Daniel Clowes’ David Boring.

Well, Art Lortie has done it again… In his never ending quest to preserve comic ephemera for the future, he has collected all episodes of the Volto from Mars comic at the Volto Archives.

Volto was the hero of a series of advertisments for General Mills’ Grape-Nut Flakes that ran in several National Periodicals comics (and others) in the 1940’s. As Art writes :

He possessed powers far beyond those of mortal men. By raising his left arm and yelling “Volto”, he could repel all objects; hoist the right and yell “Volto” and he attracts. Do it too much, and he must recharge with hearty doses of cereal.

In the 20 adventures I found, he repels menacing animals and dastardly spies, wearing standard super-hero tights and the requisite finned headgear of science fiction heroes, Luckily at some point the artists realized that his lightning bolt belt buckle would turn Volto — or any unlucky pitchman at a supermarket — into a enuch. So they moved the design onto his stomach.

Thanks, Art !

I’ve been a fan of Joost Swarte’s artwork for quite a while, and when I met him earlier this year, I was happily pleased to find out he’s as much the gentleman as his artwork suggest.

It’s not been easy to track down his work recently, not where I live anyway, but luckily people are on the lookout for me.

So here’s a picture Swarte made for this week’s issue of the New Yorker. Enjoy !

Polaroid has launched a series of ads which are clearly reminiscent of Scott Mc Cloud’s Adventures Of Carl, as described in Understanding Comics

(Thanks Twenty Four)