Surfin the Highway Reprint news!
Hey check this out from Lois Buhalis..who has done the lettering for all our favorite Sam & Max comics.. From the lois buhalis live journal blog!
http://lois2037.livejournal.com/56902.html
Sunday was more of the same. I had wanted to see the Sam and Max panel, which was about the internet game mostly, so I could see Steve Purcell, who I think I haven't seen in about 10 years or so. It was a really interesting panel, and good to check in with Steve. There are still some unfinished Sam & Max pages and I might get to letter them! They'd probably go into the soon-to-be-released reprint collection.
http://lois2037.livejournal.com/56902.html
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If we get a reprint with some extra material as promised (he he) and the webcomic released as a book i'm so gonna die from ultra happiness. We've had so much in the way of great sam and max material over this year and having this would be the icing on the cake.
--Erwin
The first full issue contained the "Monkeys Violating the Heavenly Temple" story, along with a short introducing Mack Salmon and Commander Blip and the Rubber Pants Commandos. I think this issue also included Fizzball, and "Getting Along in the Joint," a one-page Sam & Max special about how to make a realistic looking machine gun out of some soap and shoe polish.
The second one, if I remember correctly, mostly contains "On The Road," a two part story about Sam and Max taking a random road trip across America. This comic was vaguely the inspiration for Sam & Max Hit the Road, though it has only a few direct similarities (there's a circus with a Cone of Tragedy, and there's a near stop in Stuckey's, but in On The Road, they spend most of their time being waylayed by corporate businessmen turned pirates, fixing their car, visiting a mall, and dealing with hideous demons who leap through the windshield and strangle Max in his sleep... no Bigfoots, Largest Balls of Twine, Mystery Vortexes, etc).
The third comic's main attraction is Bad Day On The Moon, where Sam and Max go to the moon, finding it populated with a city full of human sized talking rats. They stop a hold-up in a convenience store, and then somehow end up on the dark side of the moon, which is apparently a city full of 2 story high cockroaches which live in old egg packages and cereal boxes the size of buildings. There are a few other short comics in this issue as well... I think for instance this issue contains "Fair Wind to Java," a short comic in which Sam and Max end up in ancient Egypt, and pants an alien to humiliate him, ending his pyramid-building tyrannical reign on the ancient Egyptians.
Sam and Max also appeared in one-page comics printed in the quarterly (or sometimes bi-annually) LucasArts "Adventurer" magazine throughout the early-mid '90s, where in each story the duo would find themselves in the universe of LucasArts' latest release (or some Steve Purcell-esque approximation thereof). For instance, when Full Throttle came out, there was a story starring the two of them as bikers riding through the desert. They went into the Star Wars universe a couple times as well (which includes one of my favorite Sam quips, mentioning that it was good that the Rebel PX had cloaks in husky boys sizes).
Other than that there have been a few random one- to five-page short stories that have appeared in various comic anthologies and digests, and places like Fox Kids magazine.
All of the stories and shorts up until 1995 were in a compilation called "Sam & Max: Surfin the Highway," which is the book this thread is about. Surfin the Highway is extremely rare at this point, and has sold on ebay for hundreds of dollars. A reprint (especially one that included the various shorts and mini-stories that Sam & Max have appeared in in the 12 years between 1995 and now) would make many fans (including me) very happy!
Hey, I just wrote a lot!
It's a Jake post (complete with edits).
I'd love a reprint too. I wonder what a reprint would do to the value of the original Surfin' the Highway books?
Hopefully nothing too important :P I'd much rather see people able to easily read the comics than see ebayers make a huge markup at the expense of those same people.
*GLEE*
Not just granted, but encouraged!
Please tell me you guys at TTG will have some copies available in the TTStore. I hate trying to buy things off of Amazon or eBay let alone searching for something like this at comic stores that have been run over by those kids playing whatever popular card game is going on right now.
-commences drooling-
I don't think the reprint would drive the value of the original print below $100 or so because the originals would still be rare. Hopefully we'll get to actually see what happends anyway!
Please reprint Surfin' the Highway!
Maybe I should trick Steve into signing my copy, and then sell it on eBay.
Would that be wrong?
*or potentially steal this idea from someone else?
Yeah, I clearly see a resemblance. I mean, who could possibly drive a car through an entire mall, wreck the place, and drive away as if nothing had happened? Well, it's either Sam & Max or the Blues brothers. :cool:
(And by the way, if there is a reprint, I shall dance like I've seldom danced before.)
LOL You are probaby right. Purcell maybe based Sam and Max loosely on the Blues Brothers, but who knows? I hope you are right, though since I can see it. This reminds me of something. I realized that whenever someone finds references in a computer game, the popular ones are usually accepted and the obscure ones are discarded as laughable. Sorry, but I am going to rant, but not about your findings, mel, but about something somewhat unrelated, regarding references in video games.
One of my pet peeves about video game references is that whoever owns a fansite has more power over their content and references they make, no matter how ridiculous it is, gets mention while another reference, though noticeable, gets rejected for being "obscure" as in the webmaster never hearing the original source material.
I had found one reference in Space Quest 1 vga where one of the robots is a parody of an obscure (in the US), but popular anime mech from an anime/manga series, which resulted in me being laughed at despite showing evidence. I think I tried three times and the third time, I forunately convince some of the mods there to put it on their reference page since I had side by side evidences that it was a parody. But still, I had to fight for it.
However, I seen other references that seems far fetched that was mentioned as reference. For example, on sq wiki, it is said that Professor Lloyd in Space Quest IV is possibily a reference to Christoper Loyd because of the name and that Christoper played a scientist in Back to the Future. Other than that, there is no similarity. I mean, wtf? LOL
Not really. However, if you have a crap load of signed copies of the comic on ebay, then maybe. It depends on the feelings of Steve, your co workers, and the bbs users here. If you don't care how we feel, then go on ahead.
I realize once the reprint comes out, you guys can hold a contest that hands out free signed copys of surfing the highway. That would be cool.
I wasn't saying that I thought The Blues Brothers were Purcell's inspiration (not that it would really matter) but it was just one of those weird connections my brain makes (parts of that movie are so burned in my brain - it's no surprise
If I'm not mistaken, Purcell started drawing Sam & Max in the late 70's, and the Blues Brothers came out in 1980.
yup, in 1978
The Blues Brothers existed before the movie, but much of their persona, including that which is similar to Sam & Max, wasn't established until the movie came out. In their first appearance, they didn't even have their trademark suits, I think. ...If I ever have my own TV show or game, I'll make a point to be straightforward about mentioning when something is a pop culture reference, most likely in the director's commentary.
Trick him? How? Tell him it's a petition against tentacles?*
*this is a pop culture reference
There are a lot of Blues Brothers similarities... in addition to the personalities of Elwood/Jake and Sam/Max and the dilapidated cop car thing, there's also the shared fascination with exploring and reveling in the seedy underbelly of America, peppering it with weird detached commentary. Sam & Max wouldn't be out of place crashing their car through a mall, oblivious to the destruction they're causing, but taking time to point out their favorite stores, for instance.
Note to Admin: More smilie icons for posting please!
Looks fun!
I played a ROM of that about 9 years ago. It was horrible. Jake and Elwood in some sort of generic vine and fungus fantasy land jumping on guys heads, only it wasn't supposed to be a bad 3rd world Mario knockoff. It was just... ridiculous. Like someone just had a "generic platformer" template and after being paid, stuck some sprites of the Blues Brothers in there. The only positive about the game is that if you left the characters idle for long enough, they did great sprite animations of Jake and Elwoods cheezy stage dances. I had an animated gif of one of them for a while but I think I've finally lost it.
Perhaps even a release of the post-95 stuff in a seperate volume? Only if there was enough of it I suppose, but it'd save some of us re-purchasing the same content
*looks at well-loved beat up copy*
*cries*
Even if it's only a reprint of 1,000 copies, I'm sure they would sell! Who owns the publication rights?
Steve I guess all the original publishers have gone out of business.
Pressure getting to you?
Bummer. But...
He doesn't dance though...
Sure he does, that's pretty much how I dance.