Wallace and Gromit and the Lost Slipper By Tristan Davies with drawings by Nick Newman, Hodder & Stoughton, $170 Prologue: Those Northern English plasticine heroes, Wallace and his dog Gromit, made famous by creator Nick Park in three Oscar-winning films, have made their first foray into a comic strip.
Louise Lucas, 30-something mum, and Theo Mordecai, her son who turned three on Thursday, are fans.
Louise: So Theo, you've eaten the Wallace and Gromit cake, worn the T-shirt, and seen the first Wallace and Gromit film, A Grand Day Out, 178 times. You can hum the jingle and have learned to say that Wallace catch-phrase, 'Cracking toast, Gromit', before 'I want dinner, Mummy'. So what do you think of their first comic book? Theo: I like it, I like Wallace and I like Gromit. Gromit's a good dog.
L: But don't you think it's a bit of a copy of other comic strips? All this 'crumbling courgettes', 'rabid raspberries' and 'preposterous pumpkins' are very similar to Captain Haddock's 'blistering barnacles' in Tintin, don't you think? The flashing sword, gnashing teeth fight-scenes are rather reminiscent of Asterix, the French chap; and Wallace's new, pedantic way of speaking ('some kind of lavishly appointed biological-chronological chronometric . . . contraption') is more like Mr Logic in Viz than anything else.
T: Um, I don't know. I like Wallace and Gromit.
L: Sorry, you don't get to read many lavatorial humour comics from Northern England, do you? But don't you think the book is like Tintin? That the fights are like Asterix? T: I like Tintin. I don't like fighting, that's not good: only kiss and hug. And share my toys.