Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

A film clapperboard sits in the top left corner, and that is the joke of the whole picture: this is not really a cave full of treasure, it is a movie set pretending to be one. The scene comes from Martin Handford's Where's Wally? In Hollywood, published in 1993, where every spread is a production in progress. Thieves in turbans clamber over rocks, genies curl out of lamps, oil jars are stacked in rows, and somewhere in the crush a striped hat and round glasses are hiding. The written blurb on the board even sets the plot for you, complete with a squabble over what a genie actually is.

Handford drew these scenes entirely by hand in pen and ink with watercolour, and each one took him roughly two months. He worked outward from the edges rather than planning the whole composition first, adding figure after figure until the page filled up, which is why the crowds feel like they could keep going past the border. He never used a model for Wally either; the character started as a small joke figure and grew into the reason people buy the books. Beyond Wally there are the other regulars to hunt down, including Odlaw in his yellow stripes, Wizard Whitebeard, and Woof, whose tail is usually all you get. Worth spotting in this one: the bright orange bursts of flame scattered through the blue cave, which act as little signposts pulling your eye across the chaos.