As seen in Ny Tid, September 30, 1947.
From the original Swedish, according to Google Translate:
Children
Note! Note!1
Terribly exciting
Serial
in adventure!
Moomin
and the End
of the Earth!
Coming Soon!2
At first, I thought Moomin was looking at a clock, but I realized it only has one hand, and the needle is shaking. The word on the dial seems to express great concern and reads “Ostadigt,” which translates to “Unsteady.” This image does not appear in the 1947 comic strip, so I’m not entirely sure what it signifies, except that it was likely purposefully drawn for this advertisement. Perhaps it is meant to illustrate the precariousness of the Earth.
All the white space around the ad is curious also. The ad is placed in the bottom left corner of the front page. Did someone not get the dimensions correct somewhere? The newspaper, Ny Tid, seems to have been a very modest enterprise, perhaps they did not have a way to enlarge it. This would explain why the strips that followed the ad in the coming weeks and months look like they were drawn at print size — more like doodles than formal newspaper comic strips.
If you like the Moomin comic strips, you should back The Comics Courier Issue 3, currently running on Kickstarter. The project is already funded, so *THIS IS HAPPENING,* but your support can put us into some great stretch goals! This project may be especially interesting to you as I have an essay about the Moomin comic strips:
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
