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Martin Handford (born 1956 in Hampstead, London) is a British children's author and illustrator who gained worldwide fame in the mid 1980s with his Where's Wally? creation, known as Where's Waldo in the USA and Canada.
Handford began drawing as a child, making stick figures on paper. His inspiration to draw such figures were classic movies and the toy soldiers he played with during that era.
As a young adult, Handford worked illustrating crowds for clients who paid him to do so. Soon after, Handford was asked to draw a character with peculiar features. After much thinking, the self-confessed Bee Gees, The Clash and Sergeant Bilko fan came up, in 1986, with the idea of "Wally", a world traveller and time travel aficionado who always dresses up in red and white. Wally was joined on most of his travels by a girl friend who wore clothes with the same colors as Wally's, and by an evil Wally (named Odlaw - Waldo spelled backwards) who dresses in yellow and black.
Handford became a minor celebrity with the success of "Where's Wally". The "Where's Wally" trademark sold in 28 different countries. Beginning in 1987, Handford produced a total of six "classic" "Where's Wally" books, but his character was branched out into other products, such as notebooks, pillows, posters, video games and many others. There was even a syndicated comic strip as well as an animated TV series.
Handford is a methodical and diligent worker. Sometimes it would take him up to eight weeks to draw a two page sketch of the equally reclusive "Wally" and the characters surrounding him.
The "Where's Wally" books were printed in Hong Kong and published for Handford by Candlewick Press, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
A movie based on the "Where's Wally" series of books was planned for filming in 2005 by Nickelodeon Movies, but was cancelled due to Paramount's management change.
The style of art executed by Mr. Handford is probably the most famous example of "WimmelBilderBuch" drawings, originally popularized by Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Brueghel the Elder und Hans Jürgen Press
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