Moomin Begins A New Life

By Tove Jansson. Published by Enfant / Drawn & Quarterly. 

Softcover, 40 pages, Colour, 2017 (originally published 1956)

A traveling prophet may hold the key to happiness, but do the Moomins really need it?

When a charismatic prophet comes to town, the residents of Moominvalley are easily convinced to follow his doctrine for true happiness. Intrigued by their friends and neighbors’ lifestyle changes, the impressionable Moomins find themselves attempting to adopt the teachings of their new spiritual leader. But the freer they get, the more miserable they feel. Moominvalley’s state of divine chaos is further complicated by the prophet’s well-intentioned decree to free all of the jail’s inmates. Moomin Begins a New Life is an eccentric all-ages adventure from the acclaimed Finnish cartoonist Tove Jansson that explores the appeal of self-transformation and the pursuit of happiness.

[Jansson’s] work soars with lightness and speed, and her drawings only echo her writing: delicate but precise, observant yet suggestive… —Los Angeles Times Book Review

A lost treasure now rediscovered, one of the sweetest, strangest comics strips ever drawn or written. A surrealist masterpiece. Honest. —Neil Gaiman