Tove Jansson was studying in Stockholm and living with her Swedish relatives, her uncle tried to stop her pilfering food by telling her that a "Moomintroll" lived in the kitchen closet and breathed cold air down people's necks. In 1952, after "Comet in Moominland" and "Finn Family Moomintroll" had been translated into English, a British publisher asked if Tove Jansson would be interested in drawing comic strips about the Moomins. Jansson had already drawn a long Moomin comic adventure, "Mumintrollet och jordens undergång" ("Moomintrolls and the End of the World"), based loosely on "Comet in Moominland", for the Swedish-language newspaper "Ny Tid",
Tove Jansson her father, Viktor Jansson, was a sculptor, and her mother, Signe Hammarsten-Jansson, was a Swedish-born graphic designer and illustrator. Tove's siblings also became artists: Per Olov Jansson became a photographer and Lars Jansson an author and cartoonist. Whilst their home was in Helsinki, the family spent many of their summers in a rented cottage on an island near Borgå, 50 km east of Helsinki. Jansson studied at University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, in Stockholm in 1930–33, the Graphic School of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 1933–1937, and finally at L'École d'Adrien Holy and L'École des Beaux-Arts