Whale-bellied sailors fighting drunkenly, a quack rubbing her ball, bones, teddy bears, spotlights – but where is Walter in this elaborate chaos? For 36 years, illustrator Martin Handford has been hiding the bespectacled man in red and white in colorful crowds, creating a cult figure that is sought after from England to China and bears a different name everywhere. The facts about the phenomenon.
Pictures: pa – picture alliance, dpa
Martin Handford is a British illustrator. Inspired by his toy figures, he began drawing crowds of people at the age of five. On September 21, 1987, the then 31-year-old published “Where’s Walter?” – in the original “Where’s Wally?” – his first hidden object book.
The Walter illustrated books have been translated into 30 languages and published in 38 countries, although Walter always goes by a different name. The French call him Charlie, the Swedes Hugo, in Croatia people look for Jura, in Denmark Holger and in the USA Waldo.
With 4.1 million fans, Walter is one of the top 25 public figures on Facebook. His illustrated books held the world record for the fastest-selling children’s books until J.K. Rowling came along with Harry Potter. Walter is nevertheless in the Guinness Book of Records with the number 3,872 – exactly that many people walked on the 19th. June 2011 disguised as Walter through Dublin.
Anyone looking for Walter in the big wide world will find him on Google Maps, where he is hiding on a roof in Vancouver.
Contemporaries that Walter encounters again and again are: Woof, Walter’s dog, who makes his first full-body appearance in 1997, before which only his striped tail was visible. The long-bearded wizard Whitebeard, whose magical powers enable Walter to continue his journey. Odlaw, Walter’s mean antagonist, and Wenda, Walter’s girlfriend.
In addition to many spin-offs, seven Walter hidden object books have been officially published, most recently “The Incredible Paper Chase” in 2009.
The app for iPhone and iPad, which can be used to search for Walter, has been downloaded 6.8 million times.
The first Walter picture book was censored at the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The reason: signs of an exposed breast the size of a millimeter. A similar picture, showing a naked man whose genital area is covered, also appears in censored form in 1997: in the Special Edition, the man is wearing white underpants.
This year, the NASCAR Motorsports Association presented the first “Where’s Waldo?” car, a colorfully spray-painted Ford Fusion that started at Martinsville Speedway in October with David Ragan behind the wheel.
To celebrate Walter’s 25th birthday The London Eye and Empire State Building in New York lit up on the 21st birthday. September 2012 in red and white for once.
Walter not only appears in his 58 million books sold, he has also made guest appearances in series such as “The Simpsons” and “How I Met Your Mother” and appeared as a cult icon on the 1,000th anniversary cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
It takes Martin Handford eight weeks to draw a Walter scene. His favorite scene is “A Tremendous Song and Dance” from “Where’s Wally? in Hollywood” tape.
Walter is also popular as a tattoo subject – true to the motto: look for it when you undress.