Comics get stamps of approval as an art form : A Florida town will be the site of a museum of cartooning and the unveiling of 20 Postal Service commemoratives.

When society architect Addison Mizner first drew plans for this seaside city in the 1920s, he envisioned a palm-shaded, Spanish-style playground for wealthy sophisticates who wanted nothing more than to dance through the Jazz Age in a bubble of champagne and fun.

But now look who’s moving in.

Dagwood Bumstead, for one.

And that consummate hillbilly, Li’l Abner. Not to mention Popeye, Nancy and Sluggo, Barney Google and the Katzenjammer Kids.

But instead of crying: “There goes the neighborhood!” residents of this manicured, South Florida city are shouting, “Welcome!”

All those cartoon characters, along with several other “Comic Strip Classics,” will be on display here Sunday when the U.S. Postal Service releases a sheet of 20 commemorative stamps on the site of the International Museum of Cartoon Art. With an initial run of 300 million, the colorful 32-cent stamps are expected to prove almost as popular as the king of stamps, the best-selling Elvis Presley commemorative issued in 1993.

“I think anyone who sees them is likely to want them,” said U.S. Postal Service spokesman Joseph Breckenridge.

However popular the cartoon stamps may be, the first-day issue ceremony here does serve to illustrate a mutual identity adjustment as subtle as a Rube Goldberg invention.

When the first phase of the $15-million International Museum of Cartoon Art opens in Mizner Park in March, an American art form will suddenly acquire a cachet of seriousness, while tony, upscale Boca Raton--literally, mouth of the mouse in Spanish--almost has to loosen up.

“The museum is very upscale itself, in keeping with the design of the city, but the cartoons themselves do have a lightheartedness to them,” says Wanda Thayer, a City Council member. “This is a gem in the crown of our extremely vibrant downtown.”

Although Mizner went broke well before realizing his dream of building a play land for the rich, Boca Raton has preserved his Spanish revivalist style in everything from the grand Boca Raton Resort & Club to a working downtown revitalized with a salmon-pink mix of shops, offices and apartments.

And there is plenty of money here among the city’s 62,000 residents. After IBM moved its data processing to town in 1969, a host of other high-tech companies followed. Boca Raton’s $50,000 median income is the among Florida’s highest, and residents support several art museums and an orchestra, the Florida Symphonic Pops.

Once the completed cartoon museum is open in 1997, officials predict 1 million visitors a year will come to see the world’s largest collection of cartoon art, including 130,000 original drawings, 10,000 books and hours of animated film. Along with comic strips, the museum will feature comic books, editorial cartoons, magazine and book illustrations, caricatures and greeting cards.

Highlights of the collection are the earliest known drawings of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, from the 1927 feature “Plane Crazy,” and original drawings of “The Yellow Kid,” the first comic strip, now a century old.

“Every now and then someone will say, ‘Cartoons aren’t art,’ ” says Mort Walker, the creator of Beetle Bailey and a Boca Raton resident who founded the museum. “But cartoons are art, a very difficult art. There are only about 200 cartoon artists in the world, and we are very competitive, fighting for that space in newspapers. In order to succeed, we have to knock someone out with writing, humor and creating characters. In a way I feel like I put on a local play every day.”

Earlier this year, in unveiling the panels chosen for the stamps, Postmaster General Marvin T. Runyon Jr. observed: “For 100 years, American comics have told us not to take ourselves so seriously. From the back of the paper, they call out to us each day . . . reminding us to laugh once in a while.”

Other strips featured in the Comic Strip Classics series include “Bringing Up Father,” featuring Maggie and Jiggs; “Gasoline Alley,” “Flash Gordon,” “Little Orphan Annie” and “Prince Valiant.” The lone female cartoonist honored is also the only contributor still alive, Dale Messick, an 89-year-old California resident who created “Brenda Starr.”

Expected for Sunday’s festivities are Walker, “Garfield” creator Jim Davis, Fred Lasswell, author of “Snuffy Smith,” “Blondie’s” Dean Young and Will Eisner, who draws “The Spirit.”