It all began with this comic adventure in the London-based newspaper Evening News on September 20, 1954.

Moomintroll has invited 15 friends and relatives to stay with him, but he quickly comes to regret it. Luckily – or unluckily – he has the help of his friend Sniff, who begins to devise more and more bizarre ways of driving the relatives away, because Moomintroll himself has a hard time telling them it’s time to leave. Alongside Sniff, who is determined to pursue wealth and fame by any means necessary, readers also meet Snufkin and Snorkmaiden. 

At the end of the story, Moomintroll is given a house very much like the Moominhouse. The Moomin and the Brigands story also introduces readers to a historical invention in comics that would become Tove Jansson’s trademark: the clever use of narrow objects as gutters to separate the panels of the comic strips.

Lars Jansson then continued this tradition in his own stories. Dozens and dozens of these objects are used in later comics, and they also comment on each scene in their own way. 

This adventure begins in the same way as all subsequent Moomin comics: the first frame of the story shows only Moomintroll’s round backside and tail. The panel contains a cryptic text: What is this? The policeman in the story is identified as such by the typical British police helmet he is wearing.

Moomin and the Brigands was published between 1954 and 1955. The Finnish name is Muumipeikko, and the Swedish name is Mumintrollet.