A touch painful on re-entry: I’m back after five years!
I was standing in line at a grocery store recently wearing my new Wallace and Gromit t-shirt from Threadless (via the new Aardman’s Artist shop!) and a gentleman behind me in line mentioned that he was a fan. We were both excited by this fact, fans in the US are not particularly common, so I’m always delighted when I meet one. Alas, having not updated this site in several years, I went to mention that I run a Wallace and Gromit fan site, and then backed up and instead said “I used to run a Wallace and Gromit fan site.” How sad! I loved running this site, even if updates were infrequent even before my departure on to other things. The fact had been wearing on me since the encounter, I miss it!
Now as the mother of two young sons, the eldest of whom is just starting to get into Shaun the Sheep, this is a wonderful time to return and get back on top of all the latest news.
Hello again!
What has gone on since my last update? A whole lot! The following is my own collection of news of note covering these past five years as a US fan.
In a previous post, I mentioned the announcement of Shaun in the City in 2015. Just like the first Gromit Unleashed, figurines and a charity auction concluded that event. Gromit Unleashed also came back to Bristol as Gromit Unleased 2 in 2018, which was unfortunate timing for me because I was pregnant with my first son and wasn’t able to travel overseas while it was running! I did get my collector hands on some figurines though, before the pandemic in 2020 closed international shipping from the Gromit Unleashed shop (I do hope it resumes again soon, there are so many great things there).
As a US collector, it can sometimes be tough to get Wallace and Gromit goodies stateside, but this has changed some in recent years. First, there are now a trio of Funko Pop! figurines featuring Wallace, Gromit, and Shaun. I pre-ordered them as soon as they were available, and was delighted as each one trickled in over a few months last year.
I was also delighted this year to see Aardman’s Artist shop on Threadless mentioned at the beginning of this post open recently. I bought several t-shirts, a magnet, and the item I’m most excited and impressed about: a large blanket! The quality is excellent, and the image looks great. I have already spent a good amount of time snuggled up and reading with it.
Speaking of reading, two books worth mentioning also came out in these past couple years. In 2016, the beautiful The Art of Aardman book was released, which I highly recommend for anyone looking for a beautiful and thoughtfully edited book across dozens of Aardman characters. The second was Aardman: An Epic Journey, published as A Grand Success! in the US, by Peter Lord and Dave Sproxton. I have to admit that I haven’t read it yet (my reading queue is long), but it’s now the next book on my list!
The most recent news is fresh off the presses, the release of a new mobile game, The Big Fix-up! It’s a game for Android and iPhone that uses your camera to create augmented reality (AR) scenarios as you progress through the game. What’s really cool about it, is that it has whole new videos with Wallace and Gromit, as well as the rest of the characters in the game. It crashed a few times on me (oops!) but it’s really cute and I’ve been enjoying it.
Other tidbits worth mentioning, is that we said goodbye to our beloved Peter Sallis, the voice of Wallace, in 2017. He passed away at age 96. Vice Press also released a limited series of prints which almost immediately sold out of the allotted 100. I did manage to get my hands on the one for A Matter of Loaf and Death.
I’m sure there’s dozens of small news items I missed, but I has been over five years since I’ve written.
And do feel free to contact me at elizabeth@wallaceandgromit.net if you have any news tidbits or anything else you’d like to see featured here. I’m just a fan and don’t have any special insight into the goings on of Aardman or Wallace and Gromit news, so I depend on you, social media, and keyword news alerts for all my news!
See you in the next time!