The Official First Day Cover features a stamp celebrating the award-winning graphic novel Paul à Québec, by Michel Rabagliati.

One of four stamps in the Graphic Novelists 2024 set, the stamp is cancelled in Montréal, Quebec – Rabagliati’s birthplace.

Good to know

The Graphic Novelists issue celebrates the work of some of Canada’s most talented and influential graphic novelists:

Chester Brown: Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography
Michel Rabagliati: Paul à Québec
Seth: Clyde Fans
Mariko Tamaki, Jillian Tamaki: This One Summer

The four stamps highlight acclaimed novels by each author, who created original illustrations for their stamp designs that show the main characters engrossed in their own stories.

About the Graphic Novelists issue

Among Canada’s most talented and influential graphic novelists, Chester Brown, Michel Rabagliati, Seth, and Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki deftly interweave words and illustrations in their award-winning works.

These stamps – featuring an acclaimed novel by each author – show the main characters engrossed in their own stories through original illustrations created by the novelists themselves.

About Michel Rabagliati

Michel Rabagliati (b. 1961 in Montréal, Quebec) was in his late 30s and working as a professional graphic designer when he switched gears to pursue his childhood love of comics. The result was an award-winning series of “altered autobiographies” about a middle-class graphic designer named Paul. Firmly rooted in Rabagliati’s home province and acclaimed for their honesty and authenticity, the 10 graphic novels follow the titular character through different stages of his life. Paul à Québec (2009) – later adapted into a movie – is a tender portrayal of Paul and his family as he struggles to cope with his father-in-law’s failing health.

About the design

The front of the Official First Day Cover features a photograph of the cover of Paul à Québec, which shows Paul leaning on a railing, looking out over the city of Montréal below. The background of the envelope shows a purplish fabric.

The front also includes the text “Graphic Novelists” and the Michel Rabagliati stamp, cancelled in Montréal, Quebec – Rabagliati’s birthplace.

The stamp is an original drawing by Rabagliati of a balding and bespectacled Paul – the lead character in the novel – reading his own story. The cancel image is of an open graphic novel.

The back features a photograph of a page from the novel, along with a short text on Rabagliati and Paul à Québec. The stamp was cancelled on May 10, in advance of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (May 11-12).

Product # 414233131

Graphic Novelists – Michel Rabagliati: Official First Day Cover