Halloween

A cackling skeleton, a wandering ghost, the heavy steps of an approaching monster — normally we run away from these signs of the scary and the supernatural. But on Halloween, when the night comes alive and the frightening feels fun, children — and the kid in all of us — seek out eerie sights and sounds, grinning like jack-o’-lanterns as they come up with scary costumes and revel in pretending to be what they’re not. Their excitement makes the Halloween darkness safe enough to celebrate but real enough to make us wonder why we thrill in the things that scare us.

As autumn approaches, these new stamps bring us back to the delightful frights of a childhood Halloween with fun, friendly depictions of a vampire, a witch, a mummy, and Frankenstein’s monster.

For art director Antonio Alcalá, finding an artist who could capture that sense of fun took him to social media, where he often discovers artists whose work promises to bring a fresh look to the U.S. stamp program.

“Sometimes I search for new talent by entering various hashtags that might be related to a particular topic, then scrolling through results until something catches my eye,” Alcalá explains. His browsing soon led him to the work of Erick Martinez, a Los Angeles-based illustrator, screen printer, and woodworker with a flair for vintage design styles.

Alcalá liked what he saw — “cute ghosts, black cats, 3D Frankenstein toys, cute 1950s-influenced kids, and so on” — and notes that the Postal Service took an immediate interest in Martinez’s style. The creative process ran smoothly when Alcalá and Martinez set suitable design parameters: “Fun, playful, not too scary, and kid-friendly, but appealing to adults,” Alcalá says. “Erick sent me multiple ideas quickly.”

“It’s always been a dream of mine to create stamps,” Martinez says, “but getting to do the Halloween stamps is just the ultimate dream job.”

Martinez has always been a fan of Halloween, but he finds that a sense of playfulness is the part of the holiday that speaks to him the most. “Dressing up, eating candy, carving pumpkins,” he says, “it’s all so unserious and fun.”

At the same time, Martinez is a horror fan, so the classic monsters have always had a special place in his heart. “They’re just an integral part of Halloween iconography,” he explains. “For these stamps, I wanted to do my own take on these classic monsters while keeping it fun and playful, like the Halloween decorations I grew up with in the ’90s.”

Featuring Martinez’s digital illustrations, the resulting four stamps bring back childhood memories with fun, friendly depictions of a vampire biting into a large jack-o’-lantern, a witch stirring a cauldron, a mummy rising from a coffin, and Frankenstein’s monster.

Every Halloween, neighborhoods across the country glimpse their own local versions of the monsters on these stamps. Children talk non-stop for weeks about their costumes as they get ready to go trick-or-treating or attend community “trunk-or-treat” events. Mummies, witches, vampires, Frankenstein’s monster, and other iconic Halloween creatures haunt the lawns of countless homes in the form of large inflatables or animated figures, startling trick-or-treaters with evil laughter or eerie music. Later that night, many families will settle in to sort through their candy and watch scary movies, as kids start thinking about what they want to be for Halloween next year.

Recent surveys showed that nearly 75 percent of adults in the United States celebrate Halloween in some way. With customs and traditions that vary widely by community, the holiday now inspires parades, carnivals, corn mazes, haunted houses, neighborhood parties, pumpkin festivals, and even pumpkin-catapulting. No matter how or where Americans observe this ever-changing holiday in the early 21st century, Halloween remains a much-anticipated celebration of the macabre in the face of approaching winter.

The Postal Service issued its first Halloween stamps, Jack-O’-Lanterns, in 2016, followed by Spooky Silhouettes in 2019.