Mood:  suave

MEXICO CITY, June 29 - Just weeks after President Vicente Fox made an offhand remark that angered many African-Americans, the Mexican government has taken another action that shows the gulf in racial sensibilities between the countries: it put cartoon caricatures of a black boy on a series of stamps.

Mexican postal officials on Tuesday unveiled the series of five stamps, a total of 750,000 stamps, depicting a character known as Memin Pinguin, a broadly drawn comic figure with thick lips, big eyes and protruding ears.

Created in 1943, the comic-book character was inspired by a Cuban child, its creators said. He is well-intentioned but hapless, and his mannerisms and speech reinforce 1940's stereotypes of blacks as lazy, mischievous and uneducated, anthropologists and civil rights advocates say. Comic books featuring the character are still being published in Mexico.

The stamps are part of a series that pays tribute to Mexican comic books. Memin Pinguin, the second in the series, was apparently chosen for this year's release because it is the 50th anniversary of the company that publishes the comic.

Publisher Manelick De la Parra told the government news agency Notimex the character would be a sort of goodwill ambassador on Mexican letters and postcards. "It seems nice if Memin can travel all over the world, spreading good news," de la Parra said, calling him "so charming, so affectionate, so wonderful, generous and friendly."