The comic-strip adventures of Wallace – the world’s most famous inventor – and Gromit – his ever faithful and resourceful canine companion – continue as man and dog frantically struggle from one hare-brained scheme and outlandish invention to the next, all in the pursuit of an honest buck. This collection of over 320 daily newspaper strips contains more crazy adventures, bonkers inventions, gags, gadgets and toe-curling puns than you can count on an abacus! Join Wallace and Gromit as they set off on a cheese tour of Europe, battle out-of-control Halloween teddy-bear robots, go treasure hunting off the coast, and make their own blockbuster movie…!

By ’eck, lad! This book contains a whole year’s worth of daily newspaper strips, which first appeared in The Sun between May 2011 and May 2012. Now you can enjoy them all without having to negotiate the embarrassment of page 3 girls, celebrity gossip and political bias – which is especially fortunate for younger readers.

Each six-day storyline occupies a double-page spread, so you can digest it in one go (like a delicious cheesy cracker). However, it’s worth taking the time to appreciate the art form in its constituent parts. Each daily strip has its own (typically corny) punchline while also contributing to the six-part whole, which in the newspaper unfolded from Monday to Saturday. The strips are presented in full colour – the colours provided by John Burns.

Scripted by a team of writers comprising Richy Chandler, Robin Etherington, Ned Hartley, Rik Hoskin, David Leach, J.P. Rutter and Rona Simpson, many of the stories revolve around Wallace’s inventions going awry. These include the Library Mate 5000 shelf stacker, the Litter Shredder-O-Matic 3000 waste paper picker-upper, the Nursatron and the robotic tennis player Bjorn Cyborg.

Some strips branch out into other areas, though. For example, Wallace loses his memory after a bump to the head in “Am-cheesy-a”, and meets his remarkably similar French cousin in “Foreign Exchange”. There’s a mystery surrounding Wendolene (from A Close Shave) in “D is for Dummy”, while Feathers McGraw (from The Wrong Trousers) is up to no good again in “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”. Wallace and Gromit take a mountaineering holiday in “Climb Any Mountain” and go on a cheese-themed vacation in “Grand Tour of Cheese”. They stumble upon an escaped macaw in “Polly Wants a Cracker (with Cheese)” and a UFO scare in “Encounters of the Furred Kind”. You have probably discerned by now certain recurring themes: inventions, cheese, wool and dreadful puns!

The brevity of the strips means that the plotlines are inevitably basic. Nevertheless, the creative team manage to pack in some lovely details, such as dog-related book titles in “Library Mate 5000”, cheese-based films in “Home Movie”, a soap opera entitled Wensleydale Farm on a television screen during “Coughs and Sneezes”, topiary figures of Feathers McGraw, Shaun the sheep and Preston the cyber-dog in “Mazed and Confused”, and a dog salon called Paws for Effect in “Hairs and Disgraces”!

There are a few typographical errors, which are particularly unfortunate when they occur in “Evening Classes”, a story all about education. “Gromit the Underdog” recycles the ‘Gromit versus the house guest’ element from The Wrong Trousers. And it’s a case of the wrong text rather than the wrong trousers at the beginning of “Mazed and Confused”, which repeats a caption from the previous strip.

On the whole, though, this collection is just grand!

8

Richard McGinlay