Anyone who has ever done regular loads of laundry will have at some point wondered about the whereabouts of a mysterious missing sock.

Now a cartoonist and an author are attempting to solve one of life's most perplexing riddles.

Alex Hallatt, former cartoonist at The Argus, who created the newspaper's cartoon strip BN1, teamed up with writer Grant Slatter to produce a series of children's books called The Fantastic World Of The Oddies.

The Oddies live in Oddieworld, which is apparently where all missing socks go.

Alex, 33, who used to live in Eastbourne, left The Argus in September to emigrate to New Zealand with her boyfriend, Garry Bull.

Her collaboration on the books with London-based writer Grant began more than two years ago when he was looking for an illustrator for his story idea and spotted her work on her web site.

She worked flat out on the drawings over the summer and will continue to illustrate the series as it evolves.

The idea for the stories originated from a bedtime game Grant would play with his children, Tom, seven, and Amber-Rose, five, which developed into stories.

Grant wrote the stories and brainstormed with Alex to come up with ideas.

Alex said: "Eventually Grant had quite a few characters' names down.

"We thought about what children want to be when they grow up, what was exciting to us as children and what is exciting to his children now."

Together they have invented characters such as Sock Fairy, Nursy, Litterbug Oddie, Witchy, Tennisina the Tennis Oddie, Drana, the Surgeon Oddie and Princess.

In the stories, Oddies look like the people who once owned them.

Alex said: "My favourite character has to be Nursy because she was based on my mum who is a nurse. When we came to do the nurse book I based the way she looks on my mum, who has reddish hair and bright eyes."

Alex also created the map of Oddieworld and invented places such as Pull-Up Hill, Verruca Woods and Bunion Town.

The first book in the series, The Story Of Oddieworld, provides the background to how Oddieworld was created and the following books tell of the journey of individual Oddies to Oddieworld.

They are aimed at children aged one to six.

Alex said: "My style is quite simple and colourful. Being a cartoon style, it is very eye-catching and that fits in with the pre-school genre."

Alex's love of cartoons began as a child when she was fanatical about comics and stored a collection of about 500 in her parents' attic.

She has no art qualifications or training and studied biochemistry at university. While there, she created a comic strip for the university newspaper.

After completing her degree, Alex went to New Jersey, USA, for six months where she worked on a new strip, Polar Circle, while juggling her drawing with waitressing.

When she returned home she worked in clinical research for seven years before deciding to take the plunge to make a full-time living from her artistic skills in 1999.

She was The Argus cartoonist for four years.

Now she is enjoying her new life in New Zealand where she also hopes to make her name through cartoons as well as with her new project.

Alex said: "I hope The Fantastic World Of The Oddies takes off. That would be a great way to make a living."

Grant said: "The Oddies was always going to be a fun concept.

"I wanted a cartoon style to bring out the humour. As soon as I saw Alex, I thought she was the one. The idea of socks going off for adventures appeals to children's sense of fun.

"At the same time their parents have the problem of losing odd socks so they can completely identify."

Grant and Alex's books are already proving popular with parents, including television actress Patsy Palmer, who reads them to her children.

She said: "My kids love the Oddies. They've even invented their own game of naming the Oddies on the back of the books.

"They're the perfect length for a bedtime story."

The books are available from bookshops or online by logging on to the Oddie web site www.oddieworld.com