Why Moomin Mania finally hit the United States

In this week’s failure line column, Jon Allsop is filling out for Jay Caspian Kang.

If you are going to my apartment you will see a lot of molars. My girlfriend and I own all sorts of trinkets bearing their likeness: a selection of mugs, a teapot, a tea towel (that we framed and put on the wall), a bedside night light, a pair of light-up key rings, a necklace, a wallet, a plastic model from a vending machine in Japan, at least one Christmas-tree decoration, a poster, and a pair of fried magnets that, in the absence of a magnetic fried door, we’ve They look like bas-reliefs of heraldic emblems.

What is Ferrissu, you might be wondering. They are children’s characters, decades ago, the dreams of Finnish writers and artists. Tove Janssonis white and round, with pointed ears, curved tails and round noses; sometimes they are likened to hippos, which is fair, even if the comparison doesn’t particularly resonate with me. (To me, they look like Moomins, which is a fact, partly because I’ve been familiar with them since I was a kid, but also reflects their bizarre visual identity; like Sheila Heti Once you put it In this magazine, they are “strangely familiar, as if Jansen happened to look in a new direction and found these tender and serious companions who have been with us all the time.”) Then, you might again no Want to know what Mullin is – they have fans all over the world, and my girlfriend and I are not alone because the sales of their merchandise, global sales are reportedly not far away, and it is reportedly $800 million in sales per year. (Moomin cups are all wrapped in beautifully illustrated, and are jewelry on the crown, highly collectible; one was sold at auction for nearly $30,000 in 2021.) Other fans include actor Lily Collins, aka “Paris”‘s reputation for fame, not only merchandise, but also collected her daughter, invited her daughter and announced an announced plot.

On the podcast, which premièred in the spring of 2023, Collins said that, when she first started collecting Moomin paraphernalia, it was “impossible” to find in the US This has changed in recent years: alongside the podcast launch, Moomin Characters (the company that manages the rights to Jansson’s creations) and Barnes & Noble announced “a significant new partnership to make Jansson’s literature widely accessible to American audiences, both in stores and online stores” (including plans to sell cups); since then, Urban Outfitters and luxury labels including Rei Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons. This year marks the 80th anniversary of Moominsdébut, and there are further signs of Finnish invasion Ongoing exhibitions At the Brooklyn Public Library (the first ever dedicated to Jensen, USA), this reflects Jensen’s progressive values. She was a determined pacifist and anti-fascist who, early in her career, was a political cartoonist, joked about dictators. Linda E., president and CEO of Brooklyn Public Library, “It talks about what is happening culturally.” Johnson says“Let our audience know: Brooklyn Public Library is not backing off.” The exhibition is titled “The Door Always Open.” (Earlier in the summer, a Mullin public art work in London was produced in collaboration with an initiative celebrating refugees, under the same nickname.)

Moomin’s role executive Tell New York era Recently, Jansson’s work “was discovered in the United States, spreading a sentence from one person to another.” Of course, most of the spread on social media is happening. There has been a dedicated Moomin community on Facebook and Tumblr for a long time. this era The report said that Gen Z is strengthening the trend – to the Mullin composition on tiktok, finding old animations on YouTube (near Jensen’s drawings closer to Jensen’s drawings than more modern 3-D products), bringing Moorse into the “global lovely global pantheon.” This cuteness is certainly a key driver of Fertiansu’s online attraction, just as the character has a “intrinsic miracle of tenderness” – as one writer Said recently After visiting the Brooklyn exhibition, it can get rid of many of the anxieties of modern life. Mullins’ connection with escapism is not a new thing: Jensen once wrote that when she “wanted to get rid of my melancholy thoughts” she created them and entered “an incredible world where everything is natural, benign, and possible.” When in the 1950s, a London newspaper commissioned Mullin comics stipulated that there was no politics, sexuality or death, Jensen was said to have replied that she knew nothing about the government, that Modinsu could not make love anatomically, and that she had killed the hedgehog, but nothing else.

However, Jansson’s books on Sky Ferris contain, sometimes explicitly, and sometimes through metaphors, political themes (war, displacement, imminent annihilation, environmental disaster, environmental disaster), which hardly distract from the many dangers of the present or present. Earlier this year, author Frances Wilson Write,exist New politician Articles about the “dark side” of Fertians, “One of the strangest aspects of the Mulin phenomenon is that these complex stories of apocalypse, collapse and defunction have been mistaken for lovely celebrations of family life.”

Is it time for a box? Not exactly. While some Mullin’s new online fans may know nothing about Jansson’s-Friel’s anxiety (not to mention weird), I don’t think there is any incompatibility between her cute illustrations and the fear of the existence of the environment they take risks. If anything, this juxtaposition allows Ferris to perfectly guide us in both online and online chaotic moments. Ultimately, we can all spend less time destined to roll and then spend more time spinning.

Technically speaking, it is not very correct to say that this year marks the 80th anniversary of Moominsdébut. When Jansson was a child, she first drew a creature like Moomin (intention to make it ugly, not cute), outlining it on the roof wall after arguing with her brother about the merits of Immanuel Kant; later, her uncle would warn her not to raid her in midnight snacks, warning that if she did, the “moomintrolls” living behind the stove would press their cold noses against her legs. Sometime after Jansen started contributing to the caricature GamThis is a Finnish magazine, she began painting a character similar to Mullin as part of her signature. In a cover illustration, You can see the gaze From behind the “M” of “Garm”. Adolf Hitler’s caricature is perched on the “G”.

During the Winter War (the Soviet Union invaded Finland in November 1939), and would continue driving from their homes to hundreds of thousands of Finns – Jansen began researching to become the first book to become Muji, today known as “Mulins and the Great FloodAlthough it wasn’t published until 1945. War was a reality Jansson later said she wanted to escape, but as Heti pointed out in his commentary on a pair of works about Jansson, the “Great Flood” looked fascinating to “Great Flood”. The book begins in the forest, a young character named Moomintroll whose mother is looking for “a caring, warm place where they can build houses when winter comes to crawl into. “Their subsequent adventures are very similar, and each redemption (e.g., lemonade and candy garden) quickly poses the greatest danger (Tummyache) (in the case of candy). A vibrant round aesthetic that defines the modern Mullin brand.

In addition to the subsequent Mullin Canon: Janson Later it was called “A mediocre story without any personality”; it was translated into English only in 2005 after her death. But similar topics run in later books. “Comets in Mullinland” (1946) can be regarded as a fable for the nuclear apocalypse (this resonance, when I was a kid, I would definitely find my resonance and only realize it was a few years later in an exhibition at the Mullin Museum in Tampere, Finland.Moominland Midwinter“contains the description of “the most devastating depression in 20th century literature”, and points out that in later comics, the psychiatrist placed Moomintroll on MEMINTROLL, making him non-existent.November Moominvalley“Watching the Moomin family disappear, a variety of characters reflect their spirit. Wilson and others likened it to “waiting for Godot.”

This is not to say that Moomin books are frustrating. The ending of some of them is very public: the flood brings a new home to the Mulins. The comet missed. And they are fun to find loyalty in the coming disaster. (When one character defines the word “catastrophe”, the other is “in other words – ‘fuss.'”), and all in all, my lasting memory of books is that despite the complications in the world, they are full of life. Another character says in Comet: “If the Earth explodes, it would be terrible.” “It’s so pretty.” I think this philosophy is what keeps Ferris in my heart (and my home). If the underlying theme may cause anxiety, then Ferrisin itself is an anchoring existence—regardless of what may happen in the world, and whether we can control it.