Amos was set up in 2002 by James Jarvis, Sofia Prantera and Russell Waterman. James had previously designed toys for fashion brand Silas, beginning with the now legendary Martin figure, released back in 1998. Along with Bounty Hunter in Japan, Silas unwittingly became one of the pioneers of the soft vinyl designer toy revolution. With help from Bounty Hunter, who had already released two figures, Martin was unleashed on an unsuspecting world and the work of James Jarvis reached a whole new audience.

For the following 5 years, Silas continued to pander to popular demand and release James' designs under both the Silas banner and as part of his World of Pain project. The Silas figures were Martin, Evil Martin and Bubba, Tattoo Me Keith and The Bearded Prophet. The WoP figures were the Policeman and Lars. All of these figures have become very collectable and some trade hands for exorbitant sums on eBay. Because of the success of these figures, and to stop Mr. Jarvis selling his soul to The Man (he also produced the set of Juvenille Delinquents for the Sony Capsule Toy project), James and the two directors of Silas decided to create a new company.

Amos was set up to independently produce and distribute James' figures; to take his work out of a "fashion" context and open up his designs to a wider audience; and to develop new projects and offer new opportunities to other artists whom they had also worked with. So far Amos has released the successful In-Crowd series, King Ken, Vortigern's Machine, Tales From Green Fuzz, YOD and other assorted projects. In-Crowd is a homage to modern pop culture, each icon having gone through a Jarvisification process to produce the figures you see on this site. King Ken is nothing more and nothing less than our very own popular ape icon.

Vortigern's Machine is an ambitious project where Jarvis and Waterman have combined to create a concept aimed at older children. Vortigern's Machine and the Great Sage of Wisdom is the first installment in the story of two young friends and their epic adventures. The story is told within the form of a European style comic book published by Amos and distributed worldwide. There is also a limited collection of vinyl figures produced to accompany the book. Work continues towards the realization of a TV series and who knows what else for Rusty and Wiggs.

Amos is also home for the curious Tales from Greenfuzz. Will Sweeney's story of food abuse, kidnap, pillage and general mayhem has so far spawned a handful of comic books and limited vinyl figures. There was also a collaboration with the Three Zero toy company to realize one of the more intricate assault vehicles from his Greenfuzz stories.

YOD is an altogether more complicated creation. Born of mathematics and existential philosophy it lives in a blank world ready to be filled with whatever Jarvis and Waterman should dictate. Each figure comes with an explanatory essay and the YODZINE serves to further expound on the myths and mystery.

Amos is also a book publisher. As well as the ‘zines, comic books and the VM graphic story book, there is an A4 collection of James Jarvis drawings, and a photographic essay based on women who choose to dress in costume at San Diego Comic-Con.

Amos has also published online. The Wisdom of Caleb was a daily comic strip blog posted during the latter half of 2010. It featured the non-adventures of the character Caleb, originally part of the In-Crowd series of mini figures. Caleb has since become a full size vinyl figure and was also a poster-boy for All Tomorrow’s Parties music festivals in the UK and Japan. A life size version of Caleb was actually used to dress the stage for the ATP I’ll Be Your Mirror event in Tokyo early in 2011.

In December 2010 Amos was invited to curate the ATP Inbetween Days festival, in Minehead, Somerset. As well as creating the artwork, we chose all of the live music, films and daytime events throughout the four days of the festival. Amos was also responsible for programming the 24 hour closed circuit festival TV channel, and produced daily ‘zines exclusively for festival goers.

Over the last few years Amos has been working more with licensee partners in Europe, the U.S. and the Far East, to produce various products incorporating our designs. Products have ranged from printed tees and sweats, to luggage and home furnishings. We aim to continue with this method of working going forward.

In future we hope we can continue to use Amos to release more of our ideas and concepts to a wider audience, while still retaining the artistic control offered to us by virtue of running a small independent company. This is the basic essence of the philosophy behind the brand and company.