European Graphic Novels+

Jansson of course was the Swedish-Finnish genius who created the Moomin series for kids, as well as for all-ages audiences. I want to say it drew upon American Charles Schulz' work on Peanuts, in which novel character-types were introduced in a fairly LC-style, exploring just what it is to be a thinking, emotional being, bumping up against others of different variety.

https://i.imgur.com/2ZkJXgV.jpeg

What I really liked about these in particular is that AFAIK, Jansson worked almost exclusively in B&W (not unlike Schulz, classically). So these full-color watercolors just kinda blew me away as a chronic Moomin fan!

https://i.imgur.com/eVbwz3k.jpeg

The story itself involves a girl searching for her lost cat, a fairly standard story-device, I suppose. But along the way she meets some wild & wonderful folks. Again a pretty classic story-device, but what makes this one stand out is the silly poetry, which I'm not sure Jansson had exactly attempted, before.

https://i.imgur.com/NycL9SR.jpeg

TBC-- all of these splash pages feature some amusing Seussian, playful poems underneath them. Here's the one for the balloon trip above:

At this point I'll quote the fadeout of this excellent little book, here:

Tove Jansson (1914-2001) is Scandinavia's best known and best loved children's author. She began publishing sketches and cartoons at the age of fifteen and in 1945 wrote the first in a series of internationally renowned Moomintroll books. The Dangerous Journey (published originally in 1977) was the final Moomin book that she wrote and illustrated, and offers a memorable last glimpse of Moomin Valley. Jansson lived in Helsinki but spent a large part of her life on an island in the Gulf of Finland.

https://www.lambiek.net/artists/j/jansson_t.htm