SEATTLE -- It's hard to explain Archie McPhee.

Instead, let's start with some of the things you can buy here:

Cthulhu water bottles. Bacon-flavored toothpaste. Devil duckies. Fire-spitting wind-up nuns. Band-Aids that look like bacon strips. Bacon-flavored gumballs. A plastic narwhal -- complete with a penguin for it to impale. A yodeling plastic pickle. Bacon-flavored mints.

And, of course, there's a bin full of rubber chickens.

The company, named after founder Mark Pahlow's eccentric great uncle, has been shipping strange objects, offbeat toys and slightly off-color gifts from its Seattle...

Former Apple engineers Kimon Tsinteris (left) and Mike Matas teamed up with Al Gore to create a new publishing platform called Push Pop Press. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

What do you do after working for Apple, a company that disrupts entire industries? Easy. You start a company to create your own ding in the universe.

That’s the idea behind Push Pop Press, a digital creation tool made by ex-Apple engineers who are about to blow up the concept of the book — with some help from Al Gore, who sits on Apple’s board of directors.

Developed by former Apple employees Mike Matas and Kimon Tsinteris,...