He is the creator of the stickman poet Purple Ronnie and the humorous artist/philosopher Edward Monkton, and is the author of Giraffes Can't Dance and many other books for children.
Upon graduation, Andreae worked as a trainee account manager at an advertising agency, while Purple Ronnie took on an overarching joie de vivre theme.
Andreae debuted the Purple Ronnie character in 1987 as a stage act for an Oxford revue before picking eight poems to appear on greetings cards with simple black and white line drawings akin to doodles.
Andreae typically depicts Ronnie as a comic poet, the cartoon's rhyming captions being written in a simple style and including mild taboo language.
[7] Other Monkton stories include The Pig of Happiness, a YouTube video of which Andreae financed and created after recovering from a bout of clinical depression.
[17] Other popular titles include Rumble in the Jungle with illustrator David Wojtowycz,[18] Pants,[19] and Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs.