The Adventures of Claude, Archimedes, and Bob

This book was my very first complete picture book project. I started it when I was living in L.A., and I took my inspiration from many places; the hand-lettered Babar books, old Warner Brothers cartoons, the Edward Lear story 'The Four Little Children Who Went Round The World', and an unjustly neglected picture book by Robin and Jocelyn Wild called 'Lady Agrippa's Unshuttable Caboodlebox'. I especially liked the complete arbitrariness of the Lear story, and I tried to achieve something similarly silly in my book.

The basic premise is that three animals live together on a deserted island - Bob the clam, Archimedes the walrus, and Claude the lobster - and they are persuaded by a saxaphone-playing beetle called Mark to voyage around the world in a cardboard box with the word 'OMELETTES' painted on the side.

Of course their boat sinks almost instantly, and they are washed up on an island populated by a society of huge ants that is very eager to eat them up.

After escaping from a locked refrigerator they manage to use some magic Swiss cheese to escape the clutches of the ants and return home; this time floating in a gigantic olive jar.

Not many people have seen 'The Adventures of Claude, Archimedes and Bob' since it was completed in 1989, but now - thanks to Cayem T Rawin and the Red Admiral Press - everyone can see it whenever they please. The boys may even be back with a new adventure in the future . . .