“One of the happiest memories of my life, discovering Moomin comics for the first time (I will love D+Q forever for publishing the complete strip collections). Around that time my work was going nowhere, I couldn’t fit into any mainstream or ‘industry’ and my personal stuff was painfully uninspired and derivative. For a month or two I stopped drawing and spent most of the time in the library browsing & reading. Best decision in my life. I wish I could afford to take another research vacation like that. I still have no idea how to ‘sell’ myself.”

That’s just lovely; Roman Muradov talking about the power of Tove Jansson’s finest creation. Everyone should have a Moomin on their side.

And it’s such a lovely image as well – in fact, Muradov loves the image so much he’s now using it for his “about” page on his website. And if you’re after something Moomin for yourself in the New Year – how about some of these?

A short while ago we mentioned the new 3D Moomin movie, Moomin and the Comet Chase.  The Discovery Film Festival in Dundee, a festival aimed at promoting international cinema for younger audiences,  is proud to announce the UK premiere of this film on  Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th October 2010.

Throughout the weekend there will be Moomin-themed workshops (craft sessions, storytelling, an introduction in animation and a talk about Moomin creator Tove Jansson), and a real Moomin party on Saturday !

The film, which is aimed at the ages 3 to 8, is in English and starts at 1 PM and tickets are available at the Discovery Film Festival website, or at the Dundee contemporary Arts website, both of which also have more info on the gig and the related events. Other treats at the Discovery Film Festival include another chance to see the recent Miyazaki film Ponyo, the beautiful (Oscar nominated and BAA winning) Irish animation Brendan and the Secret of Kells, Mamora Hosoda’s Summer Wars, not to mention the Gruffalo, among other events.

On the topic of Dundee, the six final architectural designs for a new Victoria & Albert Museum planned for the city for 2014 have been unveiled; give the London V&A’s recent strong support for comics (including a graphic novelist in residence) one would hope when it does open the Dundee V&A will include an arts element that pays homage to that city’s long comics publishing history too.

(some absolutely gorgeous comic art from Tangencias by and (c) Miguelanxo Prado)

Any of our comics chums (MCC crew?) going along to this? For more on Prado you could check out George Khoury’s interview from last spring on CBR. I also notice in the festival’s catalogue Sophia Jansson, Tove Jansson’s niece, is doing The World of Moomin event on Sunday 24th October at the Whitworth Gallery, reading from some of her favourite Moonins tales and discussing her aunt’s still much loved work. More details on these and other events at the Manchester Literature Festival site; the MLF runs from the 14th to the 25th of October.

It’s Finnish animation studio Filmkmompaniet’s second feature with the Moomins.  An earlier movie, Moomin and Midsummer Madness (see trailer below), was created by using and reformatting footage from the original TV series (giving the Moomins actual dialogue in the process).  This one, however, is an all-new creation, which uses digital 3D techniques to conjure up that vintage stop-motion feel that made the early animation so adorable.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkCe9rylUb4

The story of the film, which is directed by Maria Lindberg, is eerily topical.  When the Moomins wake up one morning, they find their that their colorful, cheerful valley is completely covered in dust.  For once, it’s not a Nordic volcano that’s erupted, but a comet which, as a philosopher predicts, will cause the end of the world.  Moomintroll, Snufkin and Sniff take up a journey to the mountains observatory to find out if that’s really true.  What begins as a summery rafting trip quickly changes in a big adventure… (sounds a lot like one of the Pooh movies, if you ask me)

On their site, Filmkompaniet also mentions a Moomin TV series of 78 episodes which should be in production at the moment.  As yet, no UK or US  release date has been announced.  In the mean time, here’s a quick look at singer Bjork’s title track to Comet Chase :

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkCe9rylUb4

Thanks to Drawn for these – a collection of scans from Tove Janson’s non Moomin work, including Tolkein’s Hobbit and Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland and The Hunting Of The Snark.

(cover to the upcoming fifth volume of complete Moomin comic strips by Tove Jansson, to be published this summer by Drawn & Quarterly)

As the blog of respected German comics publisher Reprodukt reports, Finland will be represented at the Expo as well. Amongst other things, the Moomins, the famous ghost-like creatures from Tove Jansson’s comics and storybooks (recently spotlighted here on the blog), would be featured in a stage play, called “The Father and the Sea”. However, the subject matter and content of the play has not been received well by the local authorities.  The German news blog Die Welt is quoted as reporting that the play is considered  to “not distinguish adequately between good and evil” and that one of the characters is supposed to be individualistic,”

The Chinese censors are now demanding changes, but director Anneli Mäkelä has rejected making any alterations.

Wim Lockefeer lives in Belgium and considers this to be another bad Shanghai Surprise; you can read more of his comics musings on The Ephemerist blog

“Just getting a big warm hug from Moominmamma surely says it all and usually children tend to whisper their dreams and worries into the Moomins’ ears, or they write them letters.” That has to be the sweetest thing I’ve ever read in a business column…

(no, not the ‘spring’ weather we had in the UK this week, it’s cold but happy kids playing in a winter wonderland at Moomin World)

(Moonins by Tove Jansson)

These comics were originally created as serialised strips for the Finnish daily Ny Tid, and then from 1954 to 1959 were syndicated in the London Evening News. Tragically, the London syndicate destroyed the artworks from all but one episode of her 1950s comics, but the exhibition contains a wide selection of Jansson’s very detailed pencil sketches, which are shown alongside printed proofs of the finished strips. Also included are the recently restored introductory drawings that Jansson used to pitch stories to her publishers, and to introduce her readers to new characters for a particular story.

In order to provide some context to the place of Moomin in Jansson’s life and work, the exhibition provides an overview of her background and her life with her partner Tuulikki Pietilä through photographs, paintings and film footage. Additionally, about fifty rare original drawings (on loan by the Tove Jansson Archives in Moominvalley, Finland) show the wide variety in Jansson’s artistic career, which included cartoons and illustrations for the 1930′s satirical magazine Garm (which quite often feature creatures that can be considered prototypes of what later would become the Moomin trolls), but also book covers and illustrations, quite often for equally fantastic books such as Alice In Wonderland or The Hobbit.

In all honesty, I must say that I didn’t understand what the fuss was all about when Drawn and Quarterly started reprinting the Moomin strips a couple of years ago. People whose taste and judgement I trust were over the moon, but I really was quite puzzled. After seeing Jansson’s art at the Centre, I guess there was quite some nostalgia involved there, a longing for the characters that were your friends when you were a child (the way I fondly remember Wickie the Viking, say). Still, I was very impressed by the quality and the clarity of the art, albeit especially in the non-Moomin pieces. From what I’ve seen, the stories themselves are quite ideosyncratic and quite non-consequential (don’t shoot me over this, that’s just my opinion), but the art is wonderful.

Overall, I think that the exhibition, small in scale though it may be, offers a good insight in Jansson’s carreer and art, and very consciously limits itself to those elements that are related to Moomin as a comics phenomenon. It’s a quite little show, nice to look at, for a quite little strip.

Tove Jansson’s Dreamworld, at the Belgian Comic Strip Centre, Rue des Sables 20, 1000 Brussels (Belgium), Tel.: + 32 (0)2 219 19 80, email visit@comicscenter.net. until August 29th, 2010.

As an aside, I would like to do an update on my report on the Brussels Comics Centre from a couple of years ago. In the mean time, the Centre turned twenty, and it has taken the opportunity to thoroughly re-evaluate its offerings. The website got spruced up, and the Centre got heavily involved in the established social networks, but thankfully they also decided to slightly overhaul the way the museum part works.

I hasten to say that they didn’t touch the Treasury, which seems to have introduced a rotation system in the originals that are on display, or the Museum of the Imagination, an overview of the golden era of Franco-Belgian comics (although I couldn’t help but notice that the exhibits there had been heavily dusted and had been given a dearly needed fresh coat of paint). The complete second floor, though, is gone. No more flash-back to 1982, but rather a stark overview of 2 comics that were elemental in forming the artform that comics are today. This new exhibit is airy, accessible for non-specialists and quite informative. And, above all, it contains originals for each of the 21 titles (Monster, Black Hole, Le Photographe, Donjon, Spirou – Journal d’un Ingenu, etc.), which also makes it interesting for more dedicated visitors. Sadly, though, this exhibition is only on temporary display (until the end of the month), so you’d better hurry.

Still, the Belgian Comic Strip Centre is once more well worth the visit, if you’re in Brussels.

Wim Lockefeer lives in Belgium and would like to point out that Strip museum in Belgium is quite different from the strip joints in the neighbouring Netherlands; you can read more of his comics musings on The Ephemerist blog

Well, from July 2010, you’ll be able to. SelfMadeHero have secured the rights to the Moomins Cookbook:

“The Moomins cookbook contains all the secrets to the tasty dishes prepared by the unflappable Moominmamma for the lovely little characters that live in Moominvalley. The recipes are a wonderful introduction to Finnish cuisine, presented by season, and include over 150 differest forest dishes ranging from salads, soups, fish, meat and desserts plus all the delicacies of Finnish life – from breakfast at the end of a sunny Nordic summer night to garden parties, campfires and birthday celebrations.”

All of the illustrations in the cookbook will be by the late creator of the series Tove Jansson, and the recipes of traditional Finnish food with a Moomin twist are put together by Finnish food writer Sami Malila. (via Bookseller)

In the meantime, although I doubt this will feature in the cookbook, it’s just too adorable to not share – a full Moomin gingerbread house as made by Dagmar:

Yum. I think I see a trip to the deli on the agenda for today. And if you’re after a little more Moomin marvellousness, the delightful Drawn & Quarterly editions are well worth a peruse.