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You know, an idea came to mind. A very wild idea.

I mean, given the experimental nature of this comic I'm working with, I thought to myself: "What if I wasn't the sole artist? What if Paper Hats was a collaborative effort?"

It would work like this. Well, my mind just said that it would work, but I'm not sure. I'll explain anyway: One person comes, they say "I want to draw a page", then I offer the script for a chapter, that person chooses what they want to draw based on what they feel about what was read.

It can be coherent, it can be abstract; it can be sequential, it can be just a painting. How far can someone draw a Moomin character to the point they're still recognizable as a character and belonging to the Moomin universe?

I apologize if none of this makes sense, but right now I'm on a stream of consciousness mood and some things I just typed in here weren't revised at all, I'm writing it before I forget, you see.

Well, I wrote a lot more than I was supposed to, so here's the idea in a nutshell: People who are willing to draw pages of this comic will do it so based on how they react to the script they've been given to depict through their artstyle and their work will be credited, simple as that.

Has anyone seen the Moomin Reanimated project? Yeah, it'll be something like that, but more abstract, I suppose. This idea came out of nowhere and it's fascinating. The mind sure is fascinating, don't you think?

Anyway, hope you have a nice day and happy March!

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Paper Hats Chapter I: The Shape of Rage, Pt. 2

"Here's some Moomin trivia you may or not be aware of: A young fan wrote a letter to Tove asking about Mrs. Fillyjonk's husband, to which the author answered that he is an explorer who was last seen in Borneo and hasn't returned home. I heard about it some years ago, and since then, with that in mind, I've been wondering how Mrs. Fillyjonk must feel knowing that her husband may be alive or not. A cruel doubt, don't you think? A worry within so many others..." — Janet

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Paper Hats Chapter I: The Shape of Rage, Pt. 1

"This is both a comic adaptation and a rewrite of the first chapter of Paper Hats, now focusing a lot more on Mrs. Fillyjonk's character and her worries. Since this chapter is about anxiety, mood swings and the fear of parenthood, some pages will be colored and others not in order to to represent the chaos of everyday thoughts. I'll be posting eight pages instead of four because this is going to be a long read. I don't know when I will update, maybe next month, who knows. Enjoy!" — Janet

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More pages that will probably see the light of the day.

Someday...

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Here's some more behind the scenes stuff, now featuring the sources of inspiration for my artwork.

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Update

Hello everyone! I'm here to remind you that the comic is also avaliable for reading on both Comicfury and AO3 (Archive of Our Own).

Hope you have a nice day! 🎉

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Portraits from another time.

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Comic Index

Below is a list of chapters I've drawn so far in sequential order.

Chapter 1: The Shape of Rage 👹

Part 1 / Part 2

Chapter 7: Forget We Ever Met 🥀

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 /

Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14

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A teaser for the next chapter 👀

Coming soon in who knows when

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More concept art I've found on my pictures folder, also featuring paper drafts in which I wrote random plot buns.

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Some pages I've been working on for the next chapter.

That Fillyjonk drawing in the middle (the one that looks like it came out of a Francis Bacon portrait) might be one of the most terrifying things I've drawn in a while.

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Happy holidays, everyone! Here's some concept art from Paper Hats.

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Paper Hats Chapter VII: Forget We Ever Met, Pt. 14 (Finale)

"An end, as well as the beginning." — Janet

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Paper Hats Chapter VII: Forget We Ever Met, Pt. 13

"On the question of desire, physical and unconscious, wishes that can be fulfilled or not, possible outcomes that only the mind can imagine and perhaps a closer look at what makes someone be themselves in the present time." — Janet

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Paper Hats Chapter VII: Forget We Ever Met, Pt. 12

"I'm back! I've spent these days finishing some pages while working on other projects. Also, Christmas is next week, how time flies. Anyway, hope you enjoy some pages of a very (and quite unlikely to be seen) introspective Sniff." — Janet

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An Introduction

Well, hello there!

Welcome to Paper Hats, a Moomin fancomic project written and drawn by @janetkwallace for the purpose of showcasing his/her/their artistic talents by transforming words into images, which may or may not accurately reflect each other, but which are somehow connected.

What is Paper Hats?

Paper Hats is a Moomin fanfiction I've been writing since 2022. You can read it on Archive of Our Own (AO3).

The title came from a song by This Heat, one of my favorite bands at the time I wrote the first drafts. So far, it has eight chapters in total and, at some point, I thought "what if I adapted this story into a comic book?", and that's how it all began.

And what's the story about? What are the themes?

Well, it began as a study of Mrs. Fillyjonk's character, an exploration of her worries and fears, whether a person's negative traits define their entire being and how someone feels after doing something wrong. The overall tone is borrowed from Moominpappa at Sea and November in Moominvalley, both novels which featured a melancholic and somber mood. I enjoy writing introspective characters and how they sort out thoughts, manage disorders, express their feelings, and this story is about states of mind, reflected in the writing and art style.

The writing

Stream of consciousness. Lots and lots of stream of consciousness, combined with introspection, nostalgia, existentialism and the absurd that is to think, act and feel about things. I try to make the characters as sympathetic as possible while not denying their flaws. And speaking of flaws, Paper Hats is a story about characters reflecting on their wrongdoing, what it means to them and others.

The artwork

Most of the comic is made up of individual pieces of art that somehow interconnect to tell a story. The text exists to complement the art, while the art exists to illustrate various meanings based on the text chosen for the page. Sometimes the text and artwork do not match at all, but they exist with each other. Eh, it's very experimental, and a lot of the artwork is there to translate emotions that always change shape, size, color, everything.

The inspiration for this comic came after I read "wake Up", a Daredevil comic written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by David Mack. The artwork of those comics has a dreamy, oneiric look, which I'm very fond of.

Artistic influences

Besides Tove Jansson, here’s a few: Francis Bacon, Bill Sienkiewicz, August Natterer, Barry Windsor-Smith, Hirō Isono, Deryk Thomas, Paul Klee, etc.

Chapter index (A list of the comics I've finished so far)

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Paper Hats Chapter VII: Forget We Ever Met, Pt. 11

"More existentialism, and also Sniff reminisces about a day when he met his parents, the Muddler and the Fuzzy. A few easter eggs are hidden within these pages, by the way." — Janet

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