Dick Bruna, creator of the Miffy books, talks about his life and work. Dick Bruna, the 8. Japanese groupies. By Horatia Harrod Dick Bruna has already made tea and brought over biscuits, and now he leans forward from a chair in his airy, top floor Utrecht studio. Spectacular white walrus whiskers twitch expectantly and behind a pair of oval spectacles, his eyes twinkle. This man Geppetto made flesh does not look or behave like the head of a global empire worth about 1. But Bruna is not your typical multi millionaire mogul. No, hes the creator of Miffy, the worlds most popular rabbit and think for a moment of the competition for that title Brer, Peter, Roger., whose modest adventures have sold more than 8. Hers is the first gaze I meet when I walk into the arrivals hall at Amsterdam airport, staring blankly from a shiny helium balloon. Later, I see her on pencils and building blocks, fridge magnets and school satchels, stitched together in plush and, most spectacularly, cast as a gold plated statue. None of this was Brunas intent when he first sat down 5. The Miffy brand did not develop out of the machinations of a cynical or greedy mind. TerryCorriganSpot31.39-AM-600x618.jpg' alt='I Met The Walrus Cartoon Theatre ' title='I Met The Walrus Cartoon Theatre ' />In fact, in appropriate storybook fashion, it was a little bear who was responsible for everything that happened. This particular little bear was a Bruna drawing that caught the eye of the flamboyant Conservative politician Lord Alexander Hesketh, who put its image on the side of one of his racing cars. But then Bruna began to worry I thought, what if the car is crashing Thats not very nice. Ive made it for children and not for that. He told a friend, who encouraged him to set up a company to protect the rights to his images. 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Perhaps its because he comes from a family of businesspeople that Bruna takes such a markedly unworldly approach to the company he created. Sometimes people ask me, how much do you earnNo idea at all. Of course its funny to say something like that, but Im just very happy as we are. He was born into a great Dutch publishing house the Bruna name is as familiar in Holland as W. H. Smith is in Britain. My father and my grandfather were real businesspeople, he explains, with a touch of hostility. They were not very much interested in art. The young Bruna, however, was constantly drawing. During the Second World War the family moved to a house in the Dutch countryside, and his passion for art deepened I didnt go to school, I was just at home. And we had a book about Rembrandt and one about Van Gogh, and I read those two books I think five or six times. After some time in London and Paris I really went from one gallery to another, all day. I was so much impressed by the work of Picasso and Lger, Matisse, Braque and all those people he returned to Holland and began his career as a designer of book covers for the family company. As with Miffy, his covers for books in the Black Bear imprint by Ian Fleming, Leslie Charteris and others were marvels of cool, clean graphic design. Bruna was delighted by a letter he got from one of the authors he collaborated with, Georges Simenon I see that you are trying to make your covers still simpler and simpler, he wrote. You are doing the same in designing as I try to do in writing. Bruna is always in pursuit of simpler, more perfect forms. When he draws Miffy crying, he tells me, I very often start with three or four tears. I take away one, and the next day I take away another one, and at the end I have one tear, and thats very, very sad. His work fits him comfortably into the canon of Dutch modernist graphic design, but if you ask him about his place within it, he bats away the question I never went to art school, you know. I dont know if Im an artist or this or that. He eventually stopped doing covers when he was asked to design one for a science fiction book I couldnt read it, I found it very difficult, very hard. I thought, No, thats more for younger people now. Its hard not to be struck by Brunas modesty and sweet nature. Even the details of his daily routine have a picturesque simplicity, and in his artless, unadorned English they take on an almost Zen like purity. He rises every day at 5 or 5. Irene, and draws her a picture. The pictures all of which she has kept are about things she has done, or reminders of things she is planning to do. He says that, on the morning of my visit, I did a little drawing about bridge, because shes going to bridge tonight. He then hops on his bicycle and goes to a cafe always the same one for a coffee, which is ready for him when he arrives. In the morning he works on drawing in his studio he cycles home for lunch. In the afternoon, he returns to the studio and does whatever administrative work there is to do. Utrecht, a small city of canals and cobbled streets, suits him perfectly. The people are very nice here, they leave me to work and just say Hello and thats it. And the children just say, Hello, Dick Are you going to make new books Yes, I am trying to do that. This is not to say that everything is straightforward for Bruna. Although hes been drawing Miffy for more than 5. In Brunas immaculate studio books neatly piled, paper tidied away, surfaces clean and dust free there are several little tubs packed with perfectly sharpened pencils. When I pick one up to inspect it, the end is all chewed up. I pick up another, and it too is nibbled away. The pencils are the proof of Brunas doubt, anxiousness. Its funny, he says. When I was younger I thought that when I got older I would be sure what was OK, and what was not OK. But its just the other way round. Youre getting more and more uncertain. Some years ago he met Charles M. Schulz, the creator of the Peanuts comic strip. Schulz complained that as hed got older, his hand had started to shake so that he couldnt draw smooth lines any more. But for Bruna, the sprightliest 8. It might take him a day to draw a single illustration of Miffy, anything up to 1. Thoughts of work are ever present, pigs, bears and rabbits all jostling for attention. His mind is constantly ticking over Im nearly always thinking about new stories on my bicycle. You cant stop it. Sometimes I think Id like to, because I want to sleep or somethingHe was inspired to create Poppy Pig after meeting one of his three childrens schoolteachers. First of all, he says, she didnt like it. But now shes very happy with it. On holiday in the South of France where the Brunas have a home he drives off to the shops but invariably ends up pulling over to write down an idea thats just popped into his head. On Sundays his wife ends up ordering him off to his studio because he gets so fidgety when he isnt working. Bruna married Irene in 1. When hes finished a new book he places it on a long, sturdy wooden table in his studio and invites her round to see it. Then I make coffee or tea and Im very nervous, really. Im very nervous. And I look at her and I can see in her face if it is Yes or No. Theirs seems an enviable marriage, although as we talk he turns a little regretful I feel that sometimes its a pity for Irene, because work has always been in the very first place for me. Really. Of course we went out to parties but Ive never really been. His sentence trails off sadly. The only other time in our conversation when Brunas brow clouds over is when we discuss Hello Kitty, the Japanese cartoon beloved of cute obsessed schoolgirls and lovers of kitsch throughout the world. That, he says darkly, is a copy of Miffy, I think. I dont like that at all. I always think, No, dont do that.