Happy 50th Paddington! (and thoughts about anniversaries)

Just a quick note to acknowledge that 50 years ago today that Michael Bond's first book featuring the bear from "darkest Peru" was published. Bond went on to write 13 more books with Paddington, as well as other books for children and adults.

The original Paddington books were illustrated by Peggy Fortnum in black and white, with others, including her niece, adding color. Others provided illustrations for versions of Paddington stories for younger readers, and R.W. Alley illustrated Paddington in the 1990's as well as providing new covers for the original books.

There have been three animated TV series featuring Paddington. The first one from 1975 was different in that Paddington himself was a 3 dimensional character animated with stop-motion, while the backgrounds and other characters were two dimensional. The backgrounds were black and white line drawings. There is a full-length feature film in the works with Paddington done in three dimensional computer animation which will be combined with live action footage.

While not on the same scale of A. A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh, with all of the Disney marketing might behind him, you can still find a wide range of Paddington-licensed products, including games, toys and clothes. According to wikipedia, you can find street vendors selling hand-made Paddington Bear finger puppets on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Peru.

You can read more, and keep up with the latest Paddington news on his official website www.paddingtonbear.co.uk.

Fifty years is an impressive amount of time for a character to remain popular, especially if you look at how many characters are created in children's books alone each and every year. For any character to survive in this day and age, they need to have TV or movie exposure as well. A healthy dose of merchandising doesn't hurt either, but it doesn't guarantee longevity either.

I wonder though, when do we recognize the anniversary of the creator's birth (or death) and when do we focus on the creation's first appearance? Or in some cases do we do both? Who is it that decides - descendants, publishers, copyright and trademark holders, fan clubs, official societies, cities where the person was born or lived? My gut feeling is that those who have the most at stake financially, and the greatest opportunity to make money are ultimately the ones who have the incentive and the resources to organize and publicize these types of events.

Do we need to wait until the author or illustrator is dead, or even dead a certain number of years before we start celebrating them instead of the work? Michael Bond is still alive, which could be why the focus is on Paddington. Should we expect Charles Dickens' festivals in 2012 recognizing his 200th birthday? Where there any events around J.R.R. Tolkien's 100th birthday in 1992? Perhaps Tolkien does or did not have the cultural acceptance that traditional children's or non-fantasy authors have, or we needed to wait until The Lord of the Rings was made into movies for him to achieve this iconic status. Maybe anniversary events in general have only taken off in popularity after 1992.

Does it depend on the scope of the author or illustrator's work , meaning if only one of the the author's works has made any lasting impression on our cultures or society we focus on that? Using Paddington as an example again, Bond created other characters, including a guinea pig named Olga da Polga in a series of children's books and Monsieur Pamplemousse in an adult mystery series, who aren't as well known - so perhaps the focus will always be on Paddington. Peter Pan, James M. Barrie's most well-known creation, had a 100th anniversary in 2004 (which is when the play premiered, not the book in 1911), but I haven't heard of anything for Barrie himself. Maybe in 2043 we will have celebrations recognizing 200 years of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, if someone deems Scrooge and company warrant special notice above and beyond Dickens' other works. I guess we will either have to wait and see, or start something ourselves.

Anyway, make yourself a marmalade sandwich and let me know if you know of any rhyme or reason to these celebrations and what you think of these anniversaries in principle.