The Ephemerist

On their year-long Anniversary Tour of Europe, the Smurfs took over Liège today.  And even though that’s not far from where I live, the weather was too bad to make the trip, and besides, I had work to do.

We’d bought our Smurfs from Unicef anyhow, as that is the main purpose of this campaign : raising awareness (and money) for that cause.  Which brings me to something that has been on my mind since this campaign started.  All those lowlives who are selling these charity smurfs on Ebay for $ 50 or more, you should be ashamed of yourselves for more than one reason :

1. Chances are you grabbed handfuls of Smurfs from the street in whatever city you live in, leaving nothing for the children who were meant to find them,
2. You’re trying to make money from something that you didn’t pay zip for yourself
3. The amount of money you ask is totally outrageous, as Unicef sells the same figures for a mere € 10
4. You’re actually stealing from the charity that these figures were made for.

So there.

The Smurfs are celebrating their 50th anniversary with a tour across Europe. So far, they’ve turned up in Angoulème, Ghent and Scheveningen, and in each of these cities, thousands of lifesize white Smurfs turn up. If you find one, you can take him home, paint him and take part in a competition. But at the same time, these little gnomes also create awareness about Unicef, the Smurfs’ and Studio Peyo’s charity of choice (remember the quite disturbing ad they did together last year).

Check out the mirth and surprise at each of these locations, and especially admire the Astérix smurf that Albert Uderzo painted in Angoulème.

And if you’re not in Europe, or just to lazy to go smurf hunting, why not buy your own ? They’re for sale at the Unicef Shop, they’re like three apples high (which is about 7 inches) and they’re only 10 Euro’s (which is about 15 USD, I gather). So, there’s no reason not to. Get one, paint one, fly.

Get more John And John here. Mind you : some of their strips are rather NSFW…

Here’s two recent examples of the Smurf craze that’s sweeping across Europe (or, two examples of attempts to artificially create one). Above is a key chain that was handed out to visitors of the Schleich booth at the 2008 Nürnberg Spielwarenmesse. It’s one of a special series of figurines produced to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the little blue dwarves.

In the mean time, Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn tries to cash in as well, by awarding customers with a little plastic Smurf for every € 15 purchase. These figurines are smaller than the regular Schleich ones, but apart from that, they are quite good, actually.

While waiting to post some christmas cards, I picked up these new Duostamps from my local post office. Duostamps are typically standard value stamps that have a second stamp attached with a certain topical image. In this case, from left to right, the following themes are used :

• The smurfs, with elements from several Smurfs albums (rather shoddily cropped, if you ask me). It would seem that these stamps were issued just in time for the 50th anniversary of Peyo’s characters, which will be celebrated this year.
• A set of five stamps with characters by Hergé, branded with the “Une Vie, Un Oeuvre” logo. These stamps feature Totor, Leo et Lea, Quick et Flupke, Jo et Zette and Tintin, respectively.
• A second set of stamps with Hergé art (featuring Tintin and a portrait of Hergé himself. This set too is branded with the “Une Vie, Un Oeuvre” logo.

These stamps are available from Belgian post offices, and (most probably) also on the De Post Eshop. (Smurfs © Peyo; Totor, Leo et Lea, Quick et Flupke, Jo et Zette and Tintin © Moulinsart)

Ok. Here’s a question for you. Would you buy a car because a diminutive blue cartoon character praises it ? OK, fair enough, but would you also buy it if that very same cartoon character attests that he hates the car ?

Hmm (from 2003) …