About This Stamp
This issuance celebrates Bugs Bunny and the marvelous masquerades he has employed to foil foes over the course of his 80-year career. The sheet of 20 stamps features Bugs in 10 classic costumes.
Original stamp artwork is based on iconic moments of Bugs Bunny’s career.
On the first row of stamps Bugs appears as a barber with white smock and pointy scissors; achieves “airness” on the brink of a slam-dunk in his basketball jersey; is debonair in beret, ascot, smoking jacket, and shades as a screen idol in his Hollywood digs; jokes it up as a jester in bright green garb and fool’s cap; and does a diva turn as an operatic Brunhilde in blonde braids and winged helmet.
On the second row of stamps, Bugs is a mermaid in a curly 1940s up-do; is classically composed in white tie and tails at the piano; heroically poses as the carrot-powered Super-Rabbit with blue suit and red cape; warms up to pitch a big-league ballgame; and helps save the planet as a World War II U.S. Army staff sergeant in combat uniform with an American-flag backdrop.
Since his debut in the short-subject cartoon, “A Wild Hare” in 1940, generations of audiences have cheered Bugs’s gleeful gusto, quick wit, and endless clever resource. To outwit the opposition he can conjure dynamite, cherry pies, and mallets out of thin air, dance like a seasoned hoofer, play piano, and conduct orchestras. He summons up any talent — and any costume — that will help him thwart his relentless foes.
Born of a team of young animators who produced Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons for Warner Bros., Bugs’s name came from one of those early cartoonists; “Bugs” and “Bugsy” were trendy nicknames at the time, signifying a crazed or wacky disposition. The catchy alliterative sound of “Bugs Bunny” partnered well with the names of cohorts Porky Pig and Daffy Duck.
Bugs’s very first line, “What’s up, Doc?” — unusual slang blurted out with the accent and wise-guy attitude of a street-smart New Yorker — had audiences howling and became the instant catchphrase of the “wascally wabbit,” as he was called by his first foe, the hapless hunter Elmer Fudd.
With global star power, Bugs Bunny has graced screens of all sizes from television and movies, to phones and tablets. Eighty 11-minute episodes of the new Looney Tunes Cartoons reintroduce Bugs Bunny along with other marquee Looney Tunes characters in gag-driven shorts that include classic storylines adapted for present-day audiences. The Oscar-winning rabbit has also been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. created original stamp artwork especially for the U.S. Postal Service featuring work from Warner Bros. Animation artists, who also created the selvage artwork and verso sketches. Greg Breeding was the designer, and William J. Gicker served as art director.
The Bugs Bunny stamps are being issued as Forever® stamps. These Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.
Stamp Art Director
William Gicker
William Gicker served as Director of Stamp Services for the U.S. Postal Service from 2020 until his retirement in 2023. In that position he oversaw stamp development, stamp products and exhibitions, stamp manufacturing, stamp fulfillment, and the Postmaster General’s Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC).
Gicker began working for the U.S. Postal Service in 1998. Initially assistant editor of USA Philatelic, the quarterly stamp catalog produced by Stamp Services, he soon became editor where he oversaw the catalog’s award-winning program until 2013.
Named creative director of stamps in 2001, Gicker became manager and creative director of Stamp Development in 2015. Working closely with Postal Service art directors and CSAC, he managed the creative development and quality control of more than 800 stamp issuances and 1,700 individual stamp designs.
He has served as art director for some of the most popular stamps issued by the Postal Service: the five-year Art of Disney series; Star Wars; Holy Family; Harry Potter; and Hot Wheels. As both art director and designer, Gicker lists among his many stamps, Holiday Baubles; the first international rate Global stamp in 2013; and the Gifts of Friendship joint issuance with Japan. He was also art director for the first stamp to celebrate Diwali, eight more Global Forever® stamps, and several Christmas Madonna and Child issuances, the most recent in 2024.
A native of Pennsylvania, Gicker graduated from West Chester University with a bachelor of arts degree in English Literature. He and his family live in Washington, DC.
Stamp Designer
Greg Breeding
Greg Breeding is a graphic designer and principal of Journey Group, a design company he co-founded in 1992, located in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was creative director until 2013, at which time he began serving as president and continued in that role through 2023.
Breeding’s fascination with modernism began while studying design at Virginia Commonwealth University. His affinity with the movement continues and motivates his ongoing advanced studies at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland most every summer.
As an art director for postage stamp design since 2012, Breeding has designed more than 100 stamps covering a diverse array of subjects, from Star Wars droids and Batman to Harlem Renaissance writers and the transcontinental railroad.
His work has been recognized in annual design competitions held by Graphis, AIGA, PRINT magazine, and Communication Arts.
Breeding lives in North Garden, Virginia, with his wife and enjoys nothing so much as frolicking on the floor with his grandchildren.