Self-Made Critters!!: CLAYMATES by Dev Petty

Two blobs of clay, one gray, one brown, sit side by side on a worktable, waiting for... they know not what.

Gray Blob: "So... are you new here?"

Brown Blob: "Yeah."

Gray Blob: "Me, too."

Brown Blob: "What do you think is going to happen?"

Gray Wolf: "Something wonderful!"

Then it happens. Two apparently skilled hands appear and begin to shape first Gray Blob and then Brown Blob, squeezing, shaping, carving, embossing, sculpting, until side by side there sit a Gray Wolf and a Brown Owl, perfectly molded and detailed.

"Look at us! We're PERFECT!"

But the created critters feel the urge to one-up the creator. They can't help trying to tweak perfection!

Gray Wolf stretches his perky ears in the direction of long and droopy.

"TA-DA!"

Brown Owl is not sure that the creatures should be messing with their creator's plan, but Gray Wolf insists he can fix any problems and cajoles Owl into letting him make a few nips and tucks. At first the freedom is intriguing. They can be ANYTHING! They can be any animal, even some who never were! But the two can't keep themselves from going just a little too far. Pretty soon they can't recognize each other.

"This was your idea, and it was a bad one!" said Owl.

Insisting that he can fix everything before the maker comes back, Gray, er, Wolf/Blob, jumps into a frenzy of re-shaping. It's the ever-popular "Hey! Watch This!" moment.

He and the former Owl emerge looking more like--Gray Hippo and Brown Peacock!

UH-OH! She's coming!

"Oh, No! I hope she doesn't get those pokey things out again!!"

It's the old story of the creator and the created, the sculptor and the statue, in Dev Petty's hilarious do-it-yourself makeover tale, Claymates Little, Brown and Company, 2017), It's the Pinocchio story, even the Frankenstein trope, told with great good humor by an odd couple of self-constructing friends, done in the humorous and detailed claymation-styled illustrations by artist Lauren Eldridge, who brings out the different personalities potentially resident in blobs of clay. Publishers Weekly says, "Petty's punchy, dialogue-only narrative and newcomber Eldridge's expressive sculpture give these clay buddies a surplus of personality... a giddy mix of naive and naughty."