A long-lost interview

by

Moomin made his newspaper debut in The Evening Times on 20th September 1954. One year later, the paper celebrated his first birthday with an exclusive interview with Moomin himself. And who better to interview him than Tove Jansson?

The Moomins as presented in the comic strips were very different to the characters in the books. Moomin is frequently unhappy, Snorkmaiden chases after any male in sight, and Moominpappa’s flights of fancy are often in conflict with the family unit. This interview, unseen for over sixty years, gives a rare insight into the Tove’s direction for the characters, and also reveals the original working title for Moomin’s Winter Follies – originally called The Dangerous Winter. This title would be partially re-used twenty years later for The Dangerous Journey.

Also interesting is the first mention of Misabel, who appeared in the then-current Moominsummer Madness, and months later in a much-altered form in the strip Moominmamma’s Maid. It’s clear that at this stage, Tove was developing her characters for dual use, writing them with one facet for the novels and another for the comic strips.

The illustration that Tove penned for this article would be used over and over again in the future for story books and greetings cards, but in a much truncated form, with only the Moomin family and Snorkmaiden present. The full picture includes characters from all of the strips up to that date. Speaking of dates, it has been pointed out to me by a few readers that some of the dates I’ve given are in conflict with the canonical listing on Wikipedia. It’s actually Wikipedia that’s wrong in this instance. I’m working on an accurate chronology of the strips to be published in the future.

But, that’s still to come. Without further ado – here’s the interview.

Moominbirthday1500

New Moomin TV Series

by

Moominland_midwinter3_ConceptVersion_02 (2)

The rumours are true: there’s a new Moomin TV series on the way.

 

Scheduled for January 2019, it’s got quite a pedigree behind it, with an Emmy, BAFTA or Oscar seemingly the entry-level requirement for the production team. Director Steve Box started out on the brilliantly bizarre Claymation series The Trap Door, before joining up with Aardman and winning a couple of BAFTAs and an Oscar for Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

 

Producer John Woolley won a BAFTA for Shaun the Sheep, whilst writing duo Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler are no strangers to Emmy acceptance speeches, and have written for Danger Mouse, Shaun the Sheep and Thunderbirds Are Go!

 

Creative Director / Executive Producer Marika Makaroff says of the project: “Previous Moomin animations have been intended for young children but our aim is to create a series that is true to the spirit of Tove’s tales and appeal to the whole family. We won’t shy away from the complexity and depth found in those original stories and the hybrid style of animation will be designed to achieve that. Using state-of-the-art CGI technology combined with more traditional hand-drawn techniques, we’ll follow Moomintroll’s emotional journey through the mysteries and wonders of Moominvalley.”

 

Steve Box adds “Tove Jansson’s world of the Moomins is a rare and precious body of work which, like all great art, operates on many levels. My duty is to bring her vision to the screen and create a series of films that are beautiful, atmospheric, funny, thought provoking and poignant but, above all else, remind us of our own humble position in the world and our duty to be tolerant and understanding toward our fellow creatures, be they Moomins, Mymbles or Grokes.”

 

As you can see from this concept art, it’s a mixture of 3D and 2D animation, more akin to the much-loved Polish ‘fuzzy felt’ Moomins of the 1980s than the divisive 1990s Anime series. In fact, that still looks exactly like Moominworld in Naantali in the winter.

 

Speaking of which: this is a crowdfunded venture – with the full backing of Sophia Jansson – and there are some very tempting perks for investors, ranging from exclusive mugs and t-shirts, to having your artwork (or your voice!) in the series itself. Top of the dial is a trip to Finland to follow in Tove’s footsteps and a chance to meet up with Sophia herself.

 

I’ll share more information when I get it, but suffice to say that this is a treat long-awaited by Moomin fans. There have actually been fourteen Moomin TV series to date (which I’ll be covering in future posts), but this promises to be something particularly special.

You’ll want to get right over there and have a gawk – Here’s the link to the site.

Exciting times ahead!

by

There is some very, very exciting news coming from the world of Moomins, and I’ll be sharing it in a few days’ time. Check back here at 8:01am on Wednesday March 8th for an announcement and… no, I can’t say, really I can’t.

All Good Things…

by

It has been a while since the last post, and for an unexpected reason. I had set out to find the first and last episodes of each of the Moomin strips, and give some background on the stories. This turned out to be something of a complex task. Wikipedia and other sources has the strips running in The Evening News until 1975, and it quickly became apparent that this was not the case.

It turns out that, out of the blue, The Evening News wrote to Lars Jansson in 1968 and brusquely told him that they were cancelling Moomin. This was something of a shock for Lars; The Evening News was the first paper to run Moomin and this had come about via a lengthy collaboration between Tove Jansson and then-editor Charles Sutton, who made the gruelling trip by sea to Helsinki to set up the deal. By 1968, Moomin had been widely syndicated, but the Evening News was still the original.However, times were changing and they felt that Moomin’s genteel whimsy had no place in their ‘modernised’ paper.

The final Moomin story printed in the paper was Sniff Goes Good, and the last strip ran on Saturday, 29th June 1968.

“Suddenly I realised that I would soon be unemployed,” Lars recalled. “For me, it was sad to read that letter, because it came during a time when I still thought that drawing comics was fun.” Moomin continued to run in other papers all over the world up until 1975, but the loss of the Evening News – and a third of his income – led to Lars losing heart. “When I began to dream about the Moomins, I realised it was time to stop. There was no big drama associated with the matter,” said Lars. “For sure, by the mid-1970s, the Moomins had already seen their best days. The last few years were difficult, because I had lost my narrative zest. It made it harder than ever to find new ideas to the series.”

In Autumn 1974, he drew his final strip, which ran on April 16th 1975. The Evening News replaced Moomin with Harry Hargreaves’ long-running Hayseeds, introduced in a similar manner to Moomin a decade earlier.

But which papers ran the later strips, and for how long? This is where the trail goes fuzzy, and I’ll report my findings in future posts.

In the meantime, here’s the intro to Hayseeds and – shown for the first time in nearly fifty years – the last two Moomin panels ever to run in the Evening News.

Hayseeds

Moomin280668

Moomin280669

Adventures in Moominland review

by

sophia

“Tove, wherever she is,” said Sophia Jansson, “Would be jumping up and joy for this.” After an hour’s wander through Adventures in Moominland, the launch event for the Southbank Centre’s Nordic matters, it’s difficult to argue the point. The months of painstaking work that have gone into creating a corner of Moominvalley in the heart of London have truly paid off.

It’s difficult to convey what’s been achieved here without a spoiler or two, but I’ll try my best. This is not an exhibition in the conventional sense; despite there being exhibits aplenty, there is no text and no labels. Instead, there is an audio narrative written by Laura Dockrill and voiced by Sandy Toksvig that perfectly captures the spirit of Tove Jansson’s stories, intertwined with more scene setting from the tour guide and a clever array of lighting and sound effects. The timings are absolutely flawless – the transition between recording to live is seamless.

Key environments from each of the books are mingled with aspects of Tove’s life, with secret passageways taking you from area to area. Moominvalley is revealed in its jungle phase and revisited shortly afterwards in the middle of a snowy winter night. A raft journey takes you to Klovharu, Jansson’s isolated island hideaway, and the arrival of a comet forces you to take shelter in a cave.

The different areas are realised in immaculate detail but are further enhanced by the inclusion of some genuine relics. It’s always a thrill to see a well-loved picture in the flesh, and sometimes a surprise to see just how tiny they are; in the days before digital manipulation, Tove Jansson drew many of her incredibly detailed pictures at the actual size they would appear in print. There are also plenty of preliminary sketches and some real treats such as her actual palette and her floral headpiece.

This could so easily have been a simple walk-through exhibition. Tove Jansson’s body of work is so engaging that even a simple wall of her pictures would entrance viewers of any age. Instead, curator Paul Denton and his team have worked some real magic and sneaked in a blockbuster event right at the end of a fairly baleful year.

It’s telling that the adult evening tours have already sold out until the start of March and once the reviews go out, tickets for this are going to be hard to come by. So get booking – you really, really do not want to miss this.