Once upon a time, earnest inventor Wallace and his canine companion, Gromit, built a rocket to fly to the Moon... all for the want of cheese. Now, twenty years later, you can enjoy Wallace and Gromit's original adventure anew. This humorous and highly-detailed graphic novel celebrates the anniversary of Wallace and Gromit's debut appearance on screen...

Wallace & Gromit in A Grand Day Out is a brand new graphic novel which is published to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Wallace & Gromit's first animated adventure.

To be honest, though, I'm scratching my head trying to work out who will buy this. Most people who have seen the animated short are unlikely to want to purchase a graphic novel which seems to frame everything exactly the same as the feature.

While lovingly produced and finished off with a hardcover, I couldn't help thinking that £13 was a little on the steep side for less than 60 pages of average paper quality and not overly impressive illustrations. I'm afraid I did find David Lopez's art work to be a little on the bland side - but this is more a fault of the subject matter than his artistic abilities. I've seen his work in graphic novels including Catwoman Dies and when he's given free reign his art work shines through.

I think, though, that the biggest problem is that we've been saturated with Wallace & Gromit on TV and I for one know the stories inside out to the point where I change the channel now when they are on.

This is a release that will only appeal to die hard Wallace & Gromit fans who want an averagely illustrated graphic novel for their collection.

5

Darren Rea