It's a good read, thanks for sharing. Really sad that people would pester the author about the creation. It needs to be realized that the author is just another complex human being, even though they created their fantastic thing. As I experience it takes a lot to think about other people as so complex. We much rather like them as just simple characters.

Another thing is that for long-running franchises, it's really interesting to watch the progression of character design. Both visually and characteristically. The first Moomins look really weird, but fun, compared to the later iterations. Because, of course, the context also changed a lot around them - in real life, not in-universe.