Where's Wally? The Anniversary Annual

[2012] Annual. Price £7.99
64 pages. Full colour contents.
Ladybird Books Ltd.

ISBN-13: 978-1-40930-920-8.

Cover (uncredited).

Contents:

 2 UNTITLED [Party Guests] endpaper.

 4 This Amazing Wally Annual Belongs To: indicia; illustration (uncredited).

 5 Contents

 6 Hey, Wally Fans! introduction letter by Wally [Mandy Archer].

 7 Who's Who? character fact files.

 8 Hunt for the Hundred

10 Puzzled Packing word puzzle.

11 Down Memory Lane picture puzzle.

12 Down Memory Lane memory quiz.

13 Trekking Tips text feature by Mandy Archer.

14 How to Draw Wally

16 Balloon Game picture puzzle.

18 The Travellers' Hall of Fame text feature by Mandy Archer.

20 Fantastic 50 picture puzzle.

22 On the Write Track DIY postcard feature.

24 A-Mazing Woof maze.

26 Keep it Under Your Hat puzzle page.

27 Cracking Codes text feature by Mandy Archer.

28 Surprising Times text story by Mandy Archer; illustrated by (uncredited).

32 Wally's Celebration! illustration by (uncredited).

34 The Traveller's Times text feature by Mandy Archer.

36 A Diamond in the Ruff w: Mandy Archer; a: Duncan Smith.

40 A Hand for the Band spot-the-difference.

42 V.I.P. Word Search

44 Wizard Whitebeard's Magic Scroll text feature by Mandy Archer.

46 Marvellous Maps text feature by Mandy Archer.

48 Wally's Great Global Challenge quiz.

50 Make Your Own Travel Journal DIY feature.

52 Quizzical Queues picture puzzle.

53 Wally Makes the World Go Round text feature by Mandy Archer.

54 Stripes Rule, OK? text feature by Mandy Archer.

56 Wally's Wild Goose Chase board game.

58 Picture This! crossword.

60 Answers

61 A Few More Things...

62 UNTITLED [Party Guests] endpaper.

64 UNTITLED illustration Martin Handford (? uncredited).

Where's Wally is a massive franchise, and this is (with some degree of justification) a celebration of a quarter century-long run of the world-famous wimmelbilderbuch, and as such this ought to present the history of, firstly, the books, and, of lesser importance, the short-lived television animation. Any celebration, no matter how minor a cause, is reason to give everything to the publication - to push the boat out. Where's Wally? The Anniversary Annual immediately gives cause for concern...

A ribbon proclaiming "25 years" is placed prominently on the cover, though it is neither embossed nor given metallic ink. The understated manner in which this title celebrates such an important milestone is a mystery. Although this would have been the perfect opportunity to go deeper into the popularity of Wally, specifically, and the series' approach to engaging with its audience, there is no sense of how monumental the nature of this moment is.

There are hints that this is heading in the right direction:

DID YOU KNOW?

Wally has been travelling all over this world and many others for twenty-five years! His fantastic journeys have led him across continents, through the ages, into space, and back again. Now it's time to celebrate!

Which is supported by a letter from Wally himself, in a nice touch, the momentum rapidly falters. It isn't until Surprising Times, on page 28, that the anniversary is mentioned again. There are no mentions of the sheer number of copies sold to date (of publication), or how many games have been sold, or the viewing audience for the cartoon - opportunities to amaze younger readers with the scale of Where's Wally?'s popularity are consistently missed.

There's a trick which solidifies information presented in small chunks, which is to compare weights with a comparable number of London buses. ****

There are ardent fans of the franchise who weren't alive when it began. This is something which should be noted - repeatedly.

Before the main body of the book, there is a list for a hundred things to discover within its pages. Yes, it is a manipulative attempt to exploit readers who are compelled to complete things. Aimed at people who are unable to set aside a computer game until they have located every collectible item, it is a sign that there is consideration to longevity of the title, enabling it to remain value long after all the text has been read. One small niggle is that it doesn't split the searches into four blocks of 25, further emphasising the anniversary.

There is an odd feeling of slipping back in time when confronted by How to Draw features post-1990s publications. A perennial favourite, their height of popularity in the eighties was fraught with simple, and always unanswered, questions lingering in the background - and explains, to some degree, the ubiquitous 'face on' illustrations fans often sent in to their favourite titles. While it is a perfectly adequate feature, it isn't an exceptional one. It doesn't sing.

When a title explicitly exists to exploit an anniversary, there really should be singing.

Showing how to replicate Wally from, say, three different angles, and with a few poses to choose from, would have made this a truly outstanding feature, though as it stands is fairly representative of what has been done previously. So conservative an artistic challenge for readers isn't a deal breaker, as these should be considered in relation to the rest of the title - having already noted this isn't as daring a title as it could have been, one shouldn't be surprised at a lack of inspiration.

But wait - just when things appear to have fallen into a slump, there is a surprise. Okay, admittedly it isn't a startling one, but The Travellers' Hall of Fame is a nice touch, covering Jason (of Argonauts fame), Leif Erikson, Marco Polo, James Cook, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and Neil Armstrong. There aren't enough facts peppered throughout, and it could be argued that a focus on white men is a tad too narrow a focus, but for true-life accounts it serves its purpose well.

A brief mention of Gertrude Bell would have been welcome, and the absence of Wang Dayuan, Hong Bao, Qiu Chuji, Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta, among other names of note, is simply painful. The world wasn't mapped by white men of a certain pedigree.

Accompanying the prior list of things to find, there are cropped images to find in Fantastic 50. There's even boxes provided to tick off the images located, which must have been very tempting to fill in... For the truly obsessive there are (amusingly) twenty-five more images to locate at the back of the book - a nice touch, but so very, very little, so very, very late.

The maze is a wonderful piece of whimsy, the routes through the maze constrained entirely within the word 'WOOF' - recalling playful designs which reached their peak in the seventies and eighties, this is precisely the type of imaginative expression of creativity which makes these types of annuals so enjoyable. An old trick, maybe, but one which has lasting appeal. It may not be as artistically daring as Frankie Stein's brain, but there is definitely an air of adventure when compared to oft-seen rectangle mazes.

While it certainly holds interest, the code features are rather an odd fit when placed alongside the rest of the contents. It does, admittedly, make a degree of logic when the methods of concealing information is placed in a historical context, though other smuggled items are conspicuously absent - Robert Fortune's delivery of tea from China makes for more interest than Lysander's code-on-a-belt.

A double-page spread of Wally's birthday celebration is a wonder to behold, and manages to sneakily include a reference to the publisher with someone dressed in a ladybird costume. It is a real shame this (or a similar image) wasn't included as an A3 poster slipped into the annual, but as such an extravagance isn't usually presented with annuals I'm not going to grumble about the lack of such.

The sole comic strip, A Diamond in the Ruff, begins a long time ago, when Woof was a mere pup. After dropping his bone, Woof must chase after it as it passes from place to place, eventually finding him in a stately home. A fairly simple story, with a clear narrative, is spoiled somewhat by the artistic decision to render images with a very slight 'wobble' - which has the unfortunate side-effect of making the pages look like low-resolution scans blown up. The backgrounds, unlike regular Where's Wally? scenes, are remarkably sparse, which creates a disconnect with the rest of the title's imagery.

Wally is, above all else, an explorer, and explorer's tend to like maps. Indeed, there are people who obsessively collect maps, so a feature on them ought to be well-researched and robust. The two-page feature here is... Well, it is not impressive. There's no mention of Piri Reis, Gerardus Mercator, or even the silk maps used in the Second World War, all of which afford ample opportunity to educate younger readers in the wonderful and rich history of humanity's attempt to codify and understand the world, to survive incredible hardships, and to enable almost-miraculous escapes.

DID YOU KNOW?

There is no official figure for the number of languages in the world - native tongues die out, change and reinvent themselves all the time! The most accurate estimate is over 6,800, but there could be many more still waiting to be discovered in the world's farthest outposts...

Once more, frustratingly, there is no mention of the odder aspects of language. At the very least I expect to see mention of loan-words, slang, words minted due to the advance of technology, and - if there is room - the delightful story of Grace and Virginia Kennedy, whose private language continues to fascinate me. While it is a perfectly reasonable piece, I'm not convinced we really need a reproduction of Where's Wally? in Czech, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, French, German, Italian, Icelandic, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Finnish, and Spanish.

Focusing on Wally's dress sense, Stripes Rule, OK! covers striped buildings, animals, flags, art, and in the world around us, but is so marginal, and (ironically) spotty a feature as to be almost pointless. The most focused use of stripes was in the Op Art movement, which isn't mentioned, which should be a warning sign as to the depth of the feature.

The very last thing before an endpaper puzzle offers up a tantalising glimpse of what could have been:

DID YOU KNOW?

Are you a natural born treasure hunter? Maybe you should give Geocaching a try? Geocaching is a new hi-tech craze where players throughout the world use GPS devices to try and find hidden containers called Geocaches. Over a million geocaches have been planted in a host of clever locations out in the open air. When hunters find one, they sign the log book then re-stash the cache for the next seeker to find.

This is a title seemingly designed with the specific intention of teasing me. Okay, I get it - geocaching is modern, and "cool" (or whatever description is currently en vogue), and as such gets the lion's share of attention. What is inexcusable is the apparent obliviousness to the old-school version, best seen in the hunt for the "London noses" - there's even the oft-publicised mice sculptures on buildings to hunt down. Technology is irrelevant to searches for things, mimicking Where's Wally? images in the real world.

The round-the-world exploits of Nellie Bly is completely absent from the title, which makes me unnecessarily annoyed. I had hoped that there would be some concession to the great women explorers and adventurers, exploited to a degree with Tomb Raider's promotions, but there is nothing to encourage girls or young women that they are able to stand side-by-side with the more-visible history of old white guys should they put their mind to it. Yet...

Even when a Ladybird title fails, it does so with style, image, and class.

By rights I should be immensely irritated at this title. It ought to raise my ire due to its lack of imagination, lack of verve, and sheer mundanity, but I can't find enough within to justify outrage or sadness - indeed, I smile when confronted with the cover. It makes me happy that there is still a market for intelligent, and infuriatingly difficult in places, publications. There are some magnificent ideas herein, and these, more than anything, manage to stave off my ire at so many blatant omissions.

Not perfect, by a long way, but good enough to satisfy younger Where's Wally? readers.

The modern Ladybird logo remains a hideous abomination, however.