Friday, February 16, 2007

Moomin and Lost: the revelation

I was recently struck by similarities in the fourth story collected in Drawn & Quarterly's Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip and the first season of the TV show Lost, and I feel compelled to outline my discovery here. If you are not familiar with either of these works then I invite you to check both works out and see for yourself.

The story "Moomin's Desert Island" starts with an ill-fated trip, this time in a helicopter, that crashes suddenly over a small desert island:





After the Moomins gather their senses they look for food on their island. Moomin Mamma plays Locke and goes hunting only to find... wild boars!



But here's the part that had my head spinning when I first read it: Moomin is out digging a hole when he encounters something unusual just under the surface:


Yes, he finds a hatch!


Down below there is an abandoned cave where ancient Moomins used to live, where they were involved in mysterious, sinister activities, as the explorers learn through cryptic signs on the wall of the cave:





So what does it all mean? Are Moomins the true Others? Are they related to the invisible monsters that stampede through the jungle? And what is their involvement with the Dharma Initiative? I can see I'll have to start a whole new website devoted to this mystery...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Matt,

Just goes to show, there's not a new idea under the sun, eh? Maybe the Black Smoke is actually the Groke...

Nick

Anonymous said...

Dear God...the Moomins had a helicopter?!?

This is not what I was led to believe from reading the Moomin books we got in Vancouver.

Alex S said...

Interesting comparison! I just got this Moomin book a couple weeks ago and my niece and nephews already swiped it. My dream is to someday go to Moominworld in Finland. Those books are treasures to my heart.

thisIsStephenBetts said...

Man, this is brilliant!

Can't wait for the BSG/Little Lady Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo connection to be discovered...

Tom Windsor said...

Lol, this is a very interesting connection you have found xP

Anonymous said...

hahahaha, love it ^^/

@plok: the Moomins do lots of stuff in the comics that they dont in the chapter books.... like vacation in the French Riviera?!

polli said...

wow! i watched moomin when i lived in south africa as a child and here are the comics of it? goodness moomin has grown up then huh!

Anonymous said...

Ha, that's funny! I think there are also interesting parallels in Lost to the Tintin album Flight 714: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_714

Much as I hate to admit it, I don't think the similarities are anything but coincidence — but I like the thought that Abrams and Lindelof were goofing off on old comics when they brewed together the pilot :)