Mister Zip was the discontinued cartoon mascot of the US Postal Service. A relic of the campaign to encourage the use of ZIP codes (introduced in 1963), images of Mister Zip were still visible in post offices when I was a kid. His lumpen body and rubber-hose limbs were completely without refinement, not at all like the highly abstracted, geometric style of other 1960’s & 70’s cartoons. He seemed perpetually victimized by his surroundings, hardly a desirable trait in a mailman. I found his pathetic and primitive quality compelling, and it made me want to place him in surreal and metaphorical situations.