2007 marked the 20th anniversary of Martin Hanford's 'Where's Waldo?'. In the U.K., when the book was first published in 1987 it was called 'Where's Wally?'. But in the U.S., the title had been changed to 'Where's Waldo?' Martin theorized, "The reason for that is because in England, Wally is a sort of jovial, funny kind of name. It's not a name that's taken very seriously. The American book publishers...chose Waldo, and I would imagine that Waldo had the same sort of feeling about it."
Of his drawings, Martin made known, "As I work my way through a picture, I add Wally when I come to what I feel is a good place to hide him...I have a love of situations which contain visual puns...I like Waldo to have an air of mystery about him. I wouldn't want to give him a surname or explain what family he might have had."
Martin described Waldo as "a happy-go-lucky, friendly adventurer. He always sees the good in people, never the bad. He doesn't judge people...Some of the chaotic, mad scenes that Waldo appears in, it's so unlikely that anyone would appear in those situations in the first place, but you have to know that it is almost a fantasy in itself."
"When I start drawing," Martin shared, "I always work in the same way. I work from the left-hand side of the page to the right. I'll do a small area in black and white and then add the color. Then, like a jigsaw, I work my way across the page. I'll put Waldo in wherever I think it's a good place to put him. I don't actually plan it out before I start the picture."
