This week we are going to look at two events to cheer us up. The first is the publication of the World Happiness Report, on Thursday the 19th of March and the next is the International Day of Happiness on the 20th of March.
The World Happiness Report may sound flippant, but it is drawn up by the Wellbeing Research Centre, sited within the University of Oxford, and it is also authored in conjunction with the United Nations. There are events throughout the year, which are available through YouTube, and the calendar is also online. Whilst the International Day of Happiness is also a United Nations Initiative; indeed they recognise that happiness is one of the fundamental human goals in order to achieve true well being.
Our first clue card, on Saturday the 7th of March, brought us footballer Kurt Zouma, but not just because he is smiling.
The real reason he is here is that has a middle name, and it is "Happy", not because he was always a happy child, but because in Africa, where his parents are from, there is a rather wonderful tradition of giving children a middle name with a positive message.
Our second clue, of Sunday the 8th of March, showed the larger version of this curious set, and it is here simply because it is called "The Smiler Series", though I am not entirely sure that it is a smile, its more of a grimace, but perhaps that is because it must be hard to hold a cigarette in the corner of your mouth and smile at the same time !
And thirdly, on Monday the 9th of March we had this card, simply for the title, of "Monster Laffs", though that is just the title on the reverse of the cards, the back story turned out to be much more curious than that, and not only involved a larger version of these same cards, as singles, in black and white, but a link to the cult film maker Roger Corman !
However it seems that both versions are seldom seen - and that our version, in strips, is quite rare. So many thanks to the reader who sent this, uncut, strip, in for us to enjoy.
On which note, if anyone else would like to send us any information or scans from their collection which relates in any way to our theme of the week, please do - simply email us at webmaster@card-world.co.uk - and this is the same for any corrections, or for general cartophilic correspondence and chat.