Quite how Albert came into being is probably lost in the mists of time. The very first Albert cartoon was drawn on Sunday, July 30 1996 when Albert's creator, Andrew Bowden, was on holiday with his parents, in the Loire Valley, France, during a particularly unpleasant time in his life (as anyone who knew his then girlfriend may just agree!) Where on earth the idea of drawing a pipe smoking tree came from, who knows, but the nameless cartoon tree nearly went off into obscurity.

"If there is mystery surrounding the birth of Albert then there is also mystery in his return in October 1997."

If there is mystery surrounding the birth of Albert then there is also mystery in his return in October 1997. But reappear he did and a total of 16 Albert cartoons were drawn in the months that followed.

The whole collection was scanned into computer a few months later as part of an exclusive printed version of the Albert cartoons for one keen admirer. In October 1998 those cartoons made it onto the web. The site was revamped in October 1999 and again in October 2000. Amazingly, these dates are all coincidences.

Albert started off as small doodles in the diary of Andrew Bowden - a product of his warped mind perhaps? Albert is a great example of the simplistic cartoon style which we all love, and is no way due to the fact that Andrew can't draw for toffee. Oh no.

Nor did Andrew spend much of his early high school art lessons writing the name of the 'The Bee Line Buzz Company' on anything possible, just to annoy his art teacher, Mr Brown. Amazingly his lack of artistic talent didn't put Andrew's 3rd year art teacher, the guitar playing Mr Palmer, from being truly disappointed that Andrew wasn't going to take GCSE art.

"Albert is a great example of the simplistic cartoon style which we all love"

Later on in life, Andrew contributed several hundred articles to the sixth form college magazine of Hyde Clarendon College, Hydra, as well as some cartoons published under the title of 'The Inner Circle'. Later on at university Andrew moved into websites and radio broadcasting, before graduating and eventually joining the new media division of a well known broadcaster.

Albert, 2001

And so it came to pass that no more Albert cartoons were created again. Well until 14 October 2001 anyway.

After many requests from the public, the first new Albert cartoon for 4 years was unveiled to an unsuspecting public, although it took nearly 6 months for the follow up to be posted on March 31, 2002.

Now in full colour, and created entirely on computer, there are more Albert cartoons in development, and as soon as we get a scanner, several more Albert's from the archive, never publicly seen, will also be added to this website.

A Dedication

'The Adventures of Albert' website is dedicated to Catherine Redfern, partner extraordiare to Andrew Bowden, and a big Albert fan, and to Gandalf, Trev and everyone else who has asked and begged for new Albert cartoons.

Copyright

Albert the Pipe Smoking Tree is ©1997-2002, Andrew Bowden. Please note that reproduction of Albert cartoons is not allowed without the express written permission of the copyright holder, Andrew Bowden.

top ^