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https://www.thenerdelement.com/2023/06/15/wallace-gromitin-the-grand-getaway/

The two loveable characters Wallace and Gromit are getting their own VR experience on Meta Quest later this year! Check out the full press release below. Are you excited?

Get a Thrilling First Glimpse at Wallace & Gromit in The Grand Getaway, an All-New VR Adventure From Aardman and Atlas V
 
Enter VR-O-RAMA and See the Iconic Animated Universe of Wallace & Gromit Like Never Before
 
France (June 13, 2023) — Astrea Immersive presents Wallace & Gromit in The Grand Getaway, a VR adventure from multi-award-winning independent animation studio Aardman and immersive storytelling experts Atlas V! The iconic stop-motion animated duo’s first virtual reality experience revealed its key art, logo, and an exciting teaser trailer during Saturday’s Future Games Show, as part of Summer Games Fest, following its initial announcement last year.
See how the whimsical world of Wallace & Gromit translates to VR in the exciting first teaser below:

Wallace & Gromit in The Grand Getaway is an interactive, narrative-led VR experience for Meta Quest VR headsets which will take fans on a brand-new adventure with much-loved characters Wallace and Gromit. For the first time, users will be able to walk around, explore and get a hands-on (or paws-on!) experience within the world of Wallace & Gromit, and truly be a part of the pair’s adventures.
 
In The Grand Getaway, holidays are in the offing for Wallace and Gromit. Everything is prepared to enjoy some sun, sand, and the chance to test out their latest contraption, the Auto-Caddy. But Wallace has his dates mixed up and the pair have to be on the other side of the country in just half an hour. There’s only one solution… they’ll take the Rocket!
 
Under the guidance of BERYL, their beverage and employee-related logistics contraption, Wallace and Gromit pack and prepare for take-off. But shortly after launch, a mishap with the controls sends the team hurtling off course. This is going to be a holiday to remember!
 
Wallace and Gromit, Aardman’s most beloved and iconic duo, have been delighting family audiences around the world for 30 years. First hitting our screens in Nick Park’s Academy Award®-winning Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out (1989) the pair went on to star in three further half hour specials (Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (1993), Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave (1995), and Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf or Death (2008) and a feature length film, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), and are internationally celebrated winning over 100 awards at festivals, including 3 Academy Awards® and 5 BAFTA® Awards. Most recently, the duo featured in their first augmented reality story, The Big Fix Up, launched in 2021, and a new Wallace & Gromit film has been announced for 2024, directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham.

Finbar Hawkins and Bram Ttwheam are co-directing the experience for Aardman with the support of Academy Award® winner and creator of Wallace & Gromit Nick Park, and Wallace & Gromit Creative Director Merlin Crossingham. Ben Whitehead will again voice Wallace, as he has done for previous Wallace & Gromit projects, following in the footsteps of the late Peter Sallis.

The project is a co-production between Aardman and the award-winning creators of the VR experience Spheres and Gloomy Eyes at Atlas V, in association with No Ghost and Albyon, and published by immersive distributor and publisher Astrea, with Meta Quest team support.

Wallace & Gromit in The Grand Getaway will launch in 2023 for Meta Quest.

The post Wallace & Gromitin The Grand Getaway appeared first on The Nerd Element.

https://www.blackenterprise.com/black-lives-matter-mural-vandal-arrested-in-connecticut/

The man accused of vandalizing a Black Lives Matter mural in Hartford, Connecticut, appeared before a judge on Thursday.

According to NBCCT, 36-year-old Scott Walker drew a swastika and other hate symbols across the mural down Trinity Street. After releasing surveillance that caught Walker in the act, police were able to apprehend Walker, who is now being held on a $150,000 bond.

Black residents of Hartford were saddened to see the tribute defaced with hate speech after having it as a beacon of pride for the last three years. “A lot of us were just heartbroken because, the community, we work together so much to try and make something positive,” Lashawn Robinson-Nuhu, who worked on the mural in 2020, said. According to NBCCT, Walker drew the numbers 88 and 14, commonly known as white supremacy codes, over the words in addition to the Nazi reference.

Dr. Robert Sanders, attorney and lecturer at the University of New Haven, said actions like Walker’s are why the rallying call has become a significant part of the modern-day civil rights movement. “We can’t have a nation going forward in that manner. The movement, not a moment, is to continue to oppose people who espouse that,” he said. Artists and community members have since replaced the hate speech with a heart, something Mayor Luke Bronin says is indicative of the true spirit of Hartford. “It was a vile act of hate. It was an act intended to sow fear and division. But we’re not going to be divided or made afraid,” he said. “Our Hartford, Connecticut community is united, diverse, loving, and strong.”

Bronin’s sentiments were echoed by Connecticut’s Gov. Ned Lamont, according to CT Insider. “These do not represent Connecticut values, and all of us as a community need to take a strong stance to denounce any messages advocating hate and white supremacy,” he said. “We will not be threatened by the messages of anonymous people who attempt to divide us and instill fear. I appreciate the work by the Hartford Police to investigate this crime.”

https://blackgirlnerds.com/cheryl-dunye-jingletown-and-making-space-for-black-queer-filmmakers/

Film and television director Cheryl Dunye has come a long way from her debut film The Watermelon Woman — the first film from an out Black lesbian — directing popular shows such as Lovecraft Country and Umbrella Academy and the development of her company Jingletown Films.

BGN was grateful to have this time with Dunye via Zoom just in time for Pride Month. 

How did the creation of Jingletown Films come to be? How has it shifted/expanded over the years?

So Jingletown initially started as a loan-out company for my work as an episodic director in 2017. My wife [Karina Hodoyan] who is also involved in the arts and media and is a college professor, decided leading up to the pandemic (and even before) [to support my] urges in trying to both start something bigger than just my loan out as well as address the lack of companies making work like mine that are for queer people of color and helping people in that way. In particular, women of color. It’s a commitment to a cause we both share about makers of narrative work in the Bay Area. It’s the perfect place to really launch this moment. 

Currently, we are now involved with Boots Riley and other filmmakers in the Bay Area. In particular, Oakland. We are launching an organization called Cinemama, and it’s for Bay Area filmmakers trying to get narrative work off the ground. People can gather, hang out. We just had one event, and are hosting the next event in another week or so [at the time of this interview; May 30, 2023]. That’s what we do publicly.

For myself, it’s option work. We’re promoting that as a company now. The [Writer’s Guild of America] strike is around, so we can’t really do much. But we are definitely negotiating some of the option material, developing that with two or three companies in Hollywood. 

Thank you for the way that you keep the people and community members who matter to you close to you. 

You’re welcome. And it’s so exciting that we have everybody right now in the Bay Area — people to gather together and actually have an impact on creating, kicking up dust, and kicking it aside so folks like us can be seen and heard and create work. 

Do you have any favorite Black queer collaborators you’d like to name?

A wonderful one I’d like to highlight right now in this conversation is a young maker named Martine Syms. Martine made this film called The African Desperate. The film is about a young Black woman in grad school trying to graduate, and it’s done in that cinema verite style with lots of innovations and playing with form. 

The Watermelon Woman is being relaunched by Criterion, which is very exciting. In that promotion [Criterion] asked, “Who would you like to have a conversation with?” I said Martine. I want to talk about this intergenerational work as queer folks of color trying to change form, change media. That’s one person I have my eyes out for, putting energy into. 

They also have their foot in the art world. They just won a Guggenheim like I did! I love watching their work and having the chance to promote it on a big scale; but they’re also just doing it on their own.

What are you seeing more of in film since The Watermelon Woman, especially as you’re talking about intergenerational collaborations? What do you see is still missing in film?

I feel like what’s still happening is people are digging into finding fresh new voices. They strike upon me sometimes and they strike upon others. I think storytelling in narrative film has become so commercialized and standardized, and you have to fit into this box to make it to the streaming. You have to have a big idea, a big Sundance idea. 

But I do see people looking for interesting work, then taking it and making it their own. It’s an encouraging thing to see people playing with form and using all of their identities as they speak from their work. I also see people popping out of the box that’s solely for Hollywood and finding new places to screen their work and collaborate. The pandemic allowed us to reach other collaborators globally even though we weren’t connected physically. 

What is an approach in your directing that has surprised you over the years? Especially when it comes to film versus television. What had you not considered before or you initially thought, “I would never do this,” and you ended up doing it?

What I never thought I would be doing that episodic has allowed me to do, until I started doing it a lot, is action. I’m able to do a lot of action and fights. And dance! I’m working a lot with stunt coordinators and creating interesting groovy scenes, dropping in on a scene with a fight, like in The Rookie: Feds. Niecy Nash is a good person I collaborate with on the show. 

Another genre I never thought I would have an easy fit with was gore or body horror. So my episode of Lovecraft Country Episode 5, I knew exactly how to piece it [snaps] all [snaps] together [snaps]. I call it Reese’s Pieces — make something whole that gives you an emotion or a theory, as many pieces as you can grab, then you’ll have more power in the edit. 

What do you do to nourish yourself when you’re not working?

It’s important to ask how we free the mind. I connect with people, which I also do when I am working. But it’s important to disconnect too. What I do, when I come back straight from a show, is tend to my garden. I put my hand in soil and plant. I’m in my garden in a way where I am creative in another modality. This includes volunteering too.

I think it’s also important to nourish your other modalities outside of cinema. You need a full course of you in every experience to tell stories, to be a good director and communicator. Make sure you tap into all the aspects of who you are or could be before you lay down anything that you want to call creative. 

What do you like to plant in your garden? Where do you volunteer?

Right now, I’m really trying to nourish these broccoli seeds! They’re coming along, and that’s on the veggie side. 

In the neighborhood we live in, we do a lot of clippings when we’re walking our dogs. I break them off and try to make them grow.

I love to volunteer for our block’s group watch. So I do my service to walk the block, communicate, and show up at meetings so I feel like I’m a part of my community. It’s my own community, and I’m invested in it. 

**This interview has been edited for time and clarity. 

https://nerdist.com/article/comic-book-artist-john-romita-has-died-age-93-spiderman-marvel-mary-jane-kingpin-daredevil/

One of the most prolific and legendary artists to ever work for Marvel Comics has left us. John Romita Sr. has sadly passed away at the age of 93, on June 13. The news arrived via Twitter, in a post from his son John Romita Jr., himself an art legend at Marvel Comics. The elder Romita was especially famous for taking over art duties on The Amazing Spider-Man, redefining Peter Parker’s look. This was after Spidey’s co-creator Steve Ditko left the title. During his time with Spidey, he introduced several of his co-creations to the lore, like the Kingpin and Peter Parker’s future wife, Mary Jane Watson. Stan Lee asked Romita to draw “the most beautiful girl you can imagine” when creating MJ. Romita delivered on that promise in just one iconic panel.

I say this with a heavy heart, My father passed away peacefully in his sleep. He is a legend in the art world and it would be my honor to follow in his footsteps. Please keep your thoughts and condolences here out of respect for my family.
He was the greatest man I ever met. pic.twitter.com/Pe2K3ywbWX

— John Romita JR (@JrRomita) June 14, 2023

RIP John Romita Sr. 1930-2023

Thank you for the happiest of memories ❤️ pic.twitter.com/Rfvg7U1Hcv

— Cool Comic Art (@CoolComicArt) June 14, 2023

In addition to his five-year run on The Amazing Spider-Man, Romita also co-created the characters of Wolverine, Luke Cage, and the Punisher. Technically Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko co-created the bulk of the classic Marvel heroes and villains. But by the early ’70s, Romita was the chief architect in how Marvel’s characters looked in merchandising. John Romita became the go-to guy when you needed images of Marvel’s pantheon of heroes drawn in heroic poses. In fact, during this period, John Romita Romita would serve the role of Marvel’s art director.

John Romita was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1930, the son of Italian immigrants. By 19, he was already working as a comic book artist. He would then find success drawing romance comics aimed at a female audience. In 1966, he got hired by Marvel, to draw their relatively low-selling series Daredevil. But after eight issues, Stan Lee hired him to take over for Steve Ditko when he left The Amazing Spider-Man.

During Romita’s time, he put his experience with romance comics to good use. He made Peter Parker more handsome, like a soap opera lead. He became a character MJ Watson would believably fall for. During Romita’s Spider-Man tenure, the title would go from Marvel’s second best-selling title to their biggest seller.

If you were a Gen-X kid growing up in the ’70s and ’80s loving Marvel Comics, then the art of John Romita was the way you perceived the Marvel characters. From calendars to plastic cups to posters to lunchboxes, it was Romita’s renditions that were on almost every piece of merchandising during this era. The Marvel “House Style” ultimately wasn’t Jack Kirby or Gil Kane or any other prolific artist, it was Romita’s. The heroic pose of Spidey standing in the center of his web was an image every kid knew back in the day. Most kids didn’t know who drew it, but it was the distinctive touch of John Romita. Although Romita mostly retired for the last several decades, he drew the occasional issue or cover for Marvel, reminding younger readers that he still had it. His contributions to the art form of comic books will not be forgotten.

The post Iconic Comic Book Artist John Romita Has Passed Away, Age 93 appeared first on Nerdist.