[News] 2021 in Review, Outlook of 2022 and the News of December

2021 is over soon and I am not sad about it. The year went by so quick, but had many annoying aspects. Strange to realize that this is already the second time that I write a post like this here on the blog. It seems so long ago that I started this blog back in March 2020. Nonetheless let's look back at the last year and forward to the next.

On the page above I still try to list all new issues about childhood heroes. According to my list 26 postal administrations issued 244 of these stamps in 44 issues in 2021. Last year 27 postal administrations issued 199 stamps in 41 issues. Once again I already got nearly all of the stamps I was hoping to get. Only Mafalda from Italy and the Little Prince from Serbia I am still missing. Among the featured childhood heroes were many that had already appeared on other stamps before this year, but the year also saw some first philatelic appearances. The Secret Garden, Goldorak, Bibi & Tina and many Star Wars Droids, DC characters and Pokemon were among these. 

Also I have once again created my list of favourite stamps of the year and these thematic stamps were able to take places among them:

1. Pokemon (Japan)

2. Star Wars Droids (USA)

4. Mother Hulda (Germany)

9. 400th Birth Anniversary of Jean de La Fontaine (France)

17. Goldorak (France)

19. Sendung mit der Maus (Germany)

You can see the complete list here.

For 2022 eleven countries already announced 15 issues about Childhood Heroes on Stamps, which is roughly the same amount as last year at this time, so I am sure that many more will follow in the course of the year. In the next year the theme of the EUROPA stamps will be Stories and Myths. Some of them might include children's characters, but the ones I have seen so far do not. Of the already announced issues I am especially looking forward to Rumpelstilskin and Benjamin Blümchen from Germany. The complete list you can find above. If you know of any other issue please post a comment.

The New Stamps of December were a Comic Book souvenir sheet from Bosnia and Herzegovina - Republic of Srpska, Bibi & Tina and Die drei ??? from the German series Helden der Kindheit and Demon Slayer and Peter Rabbit from Japan.

During this last month of 2021 I added some more stamps to my collection. These were the new set from Germany, a Demon Slayer stamp, the US Simpsons on covers and two postal cards about Classic Comic Strips.

Wishing all readers here A Happy New Year!