Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, Vol. 2 by Tove Jansson

Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, Vol. 2 Reviews

• 
  Nora

  I still remember reading the first volume of these while backpacking across Scandinavia with the boyfriend. We found the impratical hardcover in Tampere, Finland and lugged it around with us there on. We went there to visit the Moomin museum and were hoping to go the theme park in Naantalin later, but this one was closed during Winter. We were obsessed (we still are), and our sweet childhood memories had in common that many were spent eating cereal in the morning while watching the cartoon. These little hedonistic, hippo-like creatures have everything to enrapture children's imagination. We were shocked though to discover that the comics actually target grown-ups as well, with its satirical tone and brilliant sociological analysis. They are incredibly funny! My boyfriend later got me the second volume in Dublin, and while I can't say that it got me enthused in the same manner as the first, I still think it's a very good read with many pearls of wisdom.
  Favourite quote: Moomin Mama's maid: You just pretend and pretend!
  Moomin Mama: That's why we have such a good time!
  
  --
  
  moira
• 
  Robert

  More gentle satire from Jansson, with religion, sport and interfering neighbours all coming under the spotlight in Moomin Valley, where the cutest family of trolls you've ever seen live. I think I prefered the first volume of the comic strip to this one and the first novel, too.
• 
  Hà Linh

  món hời nhất mình từng lụm được ở Bookworm
• 
  Elizabeth A

  Book blurb: In the second volume of Tove Jansson's humorous yet melancholic Moomin comic strip, we get four new stories about jealousy, competition, child rearing, and self-reinvention.
  
  This volume collects stories #5-8.
  
  5. Moomin's Winter Follies - 3 stars.
  In which the Moomins decide to not do as their ancestors did, skip hibernation, and try out winter sports. A new heartthrob creates ripples in this idyllic valley.
  
  6. Moominmamma's Maid - 4 stars.
  In which a new neighbor shames the Moomin family for their lackadaisical housekeeping. My favorite story in this installment.
  
  7. Moomin Builds a House - 3 stars.
  In which a visitor with 17 kids come to stay, and it's all too much. Moomin decides to build his own house, and learns some lessons along the way.
  
  8. Moomin Begins a New Life - 3 stars.
  In which a traveling prophet may hold the key to happiness, but do the Moomins really need it?
  
• 
  Mira | I Read Like Phoebe Runs

  "Moomin Mamma's Maid" was my favorite, and it'd deserve a five star rating. I enjoyed the others as well, but not quite as much, so four stars it is!
• 
  Jonathon Von

  Not quite as strong as the first collection but still very good
• 
  Eddie Watkins

  What wonders and what wise innocence, what silliness and depth.
  
  I especially liked "Moomin Mamma's Maid" from which I learned a thing or two about the ills of excessive tidiness and order, and "Moomin Begins a New Life" which could teach everyone a thing or two about mindlessly following extremists and thus straying from one's inner comic compass.
• 
  Mariel

  Moomin stroked my inner child and sense of wonder with every comic panel. Moomin is a little hippo-like creature with a silly group of friends and family that constantly get into accidental trouble and end up teaching others a lesson: be more moomin-minded. Live carefree, enjoy life, fun is more important than work. Every character is very detailed and pursues their own passions endlessly, while fretting over how that passion might causes problems in their environment.
  
  I recommend this book! I've read Book One and Two and can't wait until the Third Edition.
• 
  Nicky

  Again, like the other Moomin comic strip collections, cute and funny, and often quite knowing and wry. I enjoy them a lot, and I really don't think they're just for children, whatever my local library does with 'em...
• 
  Mizuki

  Moomin Vol. 2 is a very delightful read, the characters are warm, beautifully but simply designed and adorable beyond word and the sense of humor is natural and light-heartened, strongly recommend to everyone.
• 
  Mathilde Paulsen

  Mummimamma som først blir lei seg fordi alle har glemt henne, for så å bli sint fordi de oppfører seg tullete og drar på stranden for å plukke skjell alene is a whole mood. ELSKER mummi!
• 
  Machiavelli

  i love little my. evil little monster ❤️
• 
  Jeffrey

  I have bottomless affection for Jansson's Moomin creations. The novels were my favorite reads as a young reader, and Finn Family Moomintroll was read to me multiple times (at my insistence) as a bedtime story. I'm not sure why, but despite Moomintroll having become essentially the Mickey Mouse of Finland and probably that country's most instantly recognizable symbol, I still feel like the Moomin world is this sort of awesome secret place just for me. That probably speaks to the genius of its creator, her ability to create a private, intimate, immersive experience for every reader. I'm sure it also helps that in my mind Moomin = fond childhood memories.
  
  It's interesting to me that my two favorite comic strip dailies (this and Pogo by Walt Kelly) were close contemporaries, both reaching their heights in the mid-1950s. There are rather a lot of similarities between the two strips, actually: both revolve around lovingly rendered fantastic/animal characters who live bucolic livestyles in their respective reclusive rural habitats and who on occasion suffer intrusions from the outside world or go on minor adventures. Pogo ultimately became much more involved in topical political statements than Moomin (though I've only read the Moomin strips up through 1954 at this point so that could change I suppose), but Moomin features its moments of social commentary as well (see Moomin Begins a New Life in this volume). I wonder if the pastoral settings evoked in both these works reflects a general frustration with post-World War II modernity? Not sure, and a sample size of n=2 is pretty underrepresentative of the landscape of the comic dailies of the time. I'd be very interested in receiving referrals to works in a similar vein from a concurrent time as these two, though, so if you have them pass them along!
  
• 
  Emma

  It's hard to describe what I think of Moomin. Moomin and his family live in a kind of fantasy creature alterworld, where they are most of the time at peace with nature and without need. Their small dramas are generally caused by their falling into absurd misunderstandings of the world, and their relationships are innocent and loving. But there is also a very crazy anarchistic streak to characters like Little My who enter that world and cause chaos that the other characters try to cope with in a sort of bumbling, childlike way. The Moomins also live like unreconstructed hippies, doing whatever they please in the world and interacting with it spontaneously. There's an emphasis on nature and the seasons and food and relationships and all the fundamentals, and Moominland delivers a very appealing worldview, philosophically. It's sort of nuts and 'out there', but also very pure. But I think also I just really love her drawings. Each new character is drawn as something formed completely differently from all the others, a shape and a face you wouldn't expect. She has lots of super simple, clear and direct lines, very expressive and sort of warm, somehow. Her drawing style is recognisably of its time and place (Scandinavian) and maybe this adds to its charm for me as well. Those little crinkled foreheads do a lot of work in the faces. Even the way she draws objects and houses and things is super super sweet.
  But I'm making it sound too nice: it's a really wild world, this one, actually.
• 
  Juushika

  At this point it seems fair to say that I just don't enjoy the comics as much as the books. My initial impressions remain: the art is charming, emotive, with phenomenal background detail. But the characters are slighter, more frivolous. They're inconsistent not just with the tone/character development in the books, but even between individual comic arcs. But this collection has Little My, particularly the version of her character that I'd heard of via the fandom and expected to love, and indeed I do; she's mean but not cruel, incisive, selfish, and so much fun--a sharp counterpoint to the usual Moomin-mindness.
  
• 
  Jorge Rosas

  The second book of the comic collection, some lovely stories and we finally met Little My. From topic like a maid, family values and how easy is to influence people being a Prophet.
• 
  Elsi

  Viimeisessä tarinassa korostuvat erot piirrossarjan ja alkuperäisten sarjakuvien välillä. Eihän lastenanimaatioversiossa vietetty puoliksikaan näin paheellista elämää.
• 
  jzthompson

  Anarchic fun.
• 
  Ape

  Ah, Moomins take me to my happy place. I love the entire ambience of Moominvalley, and Jansson's illustrations are beautiful. There are four whimsical little stories in this volume, including the time the Mymble's mother and new batch of children (including the fantastic Little My) come to visit and destroy everything in their path; when the residents of Moominvalley are influenced by two new prophets on the block; when Moominmamma hires Misabel as a maid; and winter tales when Mr Brisk appears to encourage them in winter sports and competitions... but doesn't like losing it seems.
• 
  shion tia ☾

  i'm going to buy all volumes of moomin: the complete tove jansson comic strip and keep them forever until i hand them down i love them so much <333
• 
  ComicNerdSam

  I love Moomins. They're the happiest creatures, and each storyline brings them out of their ordinary lives so that they can realize how happy they already are. pure comfort reading.
• 
  Sabina_bere

  Enjoyable, funny and nostalgic!
• 
  Jussi

  Miskan negailut ja muumien paardit on edelleen best
• 
  syksy

  where should i even start... these comics are clearly full of problematic material and it just makes me so disappointed in tove, even though the times were so different back when these were created, but still. and it disappoints me too how good ratings these have gotten, like? are you seriously that blind to all these problems?
  
  in this book mymble and snorkmaiden once again go and fall in love with a man who is oh so strong and manly, without literally any other reason that him being "a real man". snorkmaiden suggests that moomintroll is a wuss and by that clearly means not manly enough. and when moomintroll then does something he's terrified of to impress snorkmaiden for whatever reason, she couldn't care less because she's so in love with that other man. and when mymble and snorkmaiden get in trouble and ask the man they have fallen for to help them, he doesn't care about "stupid girls". and when moomintroll helps them, failing a little bit, snorkmaiden is mean to him. it's really, really not cool at all to potray men to only be worthy of love if they're strong and brave and "manly" whatever that means.
  
  and the other thing, which is even more gross. in the last comic of this book, snorkmaiden gets "robbed" by a man with her consent, and for snorkmaiden that is boring and not pleasant because the man wouldn't ever even considered "robbing" her without consent, because it would've been so much more romantic if he would've just robbed without asking permission. there's not even words to describe how utterly disgusting that is. it is never romantic even in the slightest to not have consent, if you don't have that you're (sexually) harassing. always and every single time. everyone who doesn't ask for consent is a horrible creep and should NOT be romanticized. and in this comic, moomintroll does just that, and it is not cool, at all.
  
  seriously, why on earth are you liking these comics so much?
• 
  Carol

  This is a book that i borrowed from the public library.
  
  I watched the cartoon on TV when I was a kid. After reading the first comic, I found that it's something more than an entertaining read for children.
  
  I like the last story "Moomin Begins a New Life" the best. Two prophets came to Moomin valley and their prophecies destroyed the peace and the way of life of the place. One claims that people should 'eat, drink and be happy! Back to nature! A free and happy life'. He encourages people to live in self-indulgence and abandone 'the narrow ideas of traditions'. His ideas lead to a dreadful life in Moonin valley, as people destroy their old way of living and refuses to get back to their old life despise things has gone terribly wrong.
  
  Amid chaos, another prophet shows up and criticises people of having 'no conception of guilt, sin, and punishment'. He tries to restore the world into good order by emphasizing 'duty, sacrifice, and self-denial'. In the end, the Moomin family finds that it's not alright to deny all pleasures in life and thinks that 'all that is good is sin'. They can live happily by practising the fighting values, striking a balance between indulgence and duties, individual enjoyment and sacrifice.
  
  There's a lot more to say about the book. It's inspiring and it's a book that worth reading again from time to time.
  
• 
  Katrina

  It's difficult to explain Moomintrolls to anyone who hasn't experienced them firsthand. The most basic description I can manage is that they're Finnish/Swedish fairy tales about a group of exceedingly eccentric creatures who embark on a series of whimsical, meandering adventures. I own several of Jansson's Moomintroll books (the rest are on my wishlist, of course, and I will snatch them up as soon as I have disposable income again), as well as the first two volumes of Jansson's Moomin comic strips. I bought Volume 2 at The Strand in New York City and ruined the cover a bit while wandering all over the rain-soaked city (to my great disappointment--these books are so beautiful, and I really wish my copy was in pristine condition). I hadn't gotten around to reading it for quite some time, though, and I wonder what took me so long. My favorite character, Snufkin, isn't in this volume, but the stories are so delightful, I actually didn't notice his absence until I had finished all four tales. The character designs are absolutely fantastic--I have a set of colored Jansson drawings that I picked up in Finland hanging on my wall, and I adore them. The comic strips are black and white, of course, and wonderfully detailed, both in the art and the writing. This is a book I want to share with friends.
• 
  Lavina

  It's pretty hard to top "Moomin on the Riviera" and the trunk of foul language from Book One (plus I think you just fall in love with whatever Moomin you read first), but this comes pretty close.
  
  I love that it's always the whole Moomin family who are up to wacky hijinks, not just the little Moomin. In fact, Moomin Mama and Moomin Papa are often the instigators -- then chaos, hilarity, and profound wisdom ensue, all in the form of round hippo-like trolls. Genius. I could read this stuff all day.
• 
  Corinne

  I've been losing my self in the land of the moomins on a nearly annual basis for nearly forever, at least since I was 8. These books are beautifully bound and am happy to have them in my world. I find the comic strip genre less engaging, but I loved seeing all her illustrations and I've found these books have immense appeal to some of the very folks I know.
  
  A trip to Finland has long been on my list, and now that I've learned of Muumimaailma (Moomin World), I have all the more reason.
• 
  Tiina

  Toimii: vielä nyt aikuisenakin.
• 
  Max

  So lovely and magical.. I love the Moominworld. Tove Jansson is one of my all time favourite authors with her whimsical stories!