As is often the case this time of year, Steve Purcell has sent out a great piece of holiday themed artwork starring the worlds favorite crimefighting animal duo (click for full version). And, for fun, here’s one from a couple years back.

So maybe I forgot to renew the domain name. Fortunately Dotster is kind and didn’t give it away to some mysterious domain squatter before I could even notice.

Anyway, I wonder what’s going on in the world of Sam & Max. There hasn’t been much news on Bad Brain (see below) since those initial announcements. Wonder if anything’s cooking with that, or if it’s died on the vine? We’ll see I guess.

Take this one with a sizeable grain of salt. Over at the website and online adventure magazine, “The Inventory,” Wolfgang Kierdorf, spokesman for German game publisher Bad Brain Entertainment, made some thinly-veiled hints about a project they’re persuing, involving the possible revival of our favorite crime-stomping Freelance Police.

quote:

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“…also there are negotiations with LucasArts but I can’t get into detail here. Maybe this will be the surprise release of 2005. The game you all wanted but didn’t get (except for a fine trailer)…”

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One can take an educated guess as to what game (and what trailer) he’s alluding to, but given Sam & Max’s extremely bumpy and failure-ridden road in the past few years, I wouldn’t set aside the $49.95 just yet. I will, however, be keeping my fingers crossed and my eye on the news. It’s about time something like this happened.

The guys at Telltale Games were interviewed by the Marin Independent Journal about what’s going on with them as a games company. There’s a decent amount about Sam & Max 2 and their wishes for the franchise…

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Although the company is in negotiations for the license of another game, the trio said it is no secret that they want to develop the sequel to “Sam and Max” or something like it. An online petition in support of the canceled game incited the company’s launch, they said.”When we saw the petition and how upset people were, we knew we had to start Telltale Games,” Bruner said.

LucasArts has a license for the game from the comic book’s creator, Steve Purcell. That license expires in May, at which point Connors said he hopes to strike a deal with Purcell.

Purcell could not be reached for comment, nor could LucasArts spokeswoman Anne Marie Stein.

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Well there you go. Looks like they really do want to make a Sam & Max game (who wouldn’t?) but the Freelance Police will be sitting out at least the first round. That said, the Telltale guys seem to know what they’re doing, and definitely seem dedicated, so I think it’s more than worth keeping an eye on their first game as well.

Telltale Games, a new adventure design company made from some members of the former Sam & Max Freelance Police team, have finally peeked out their heads after months of hiding. You can read a Q&A with one Telltale team member, Dan Connors, over at Gamespot.

In the Q&A Connors talks about Telltale’s goals (compelling story driven games that remind everyone of the great adventures of yesteryear, using online distribution with no publisher), a bunch of silly stuff, and of course, whether their first game is a Sam & Max title. Of course, Dan Connors has nothing to say about that, though he does say that their first game will be based on a “much loved franchise.”

That’s not very conclusive at all, but it hasn’t stopped the nerds of the world over at Slashdot from proclaiming it the second coming (or third or fourth depending really) of the Freelance Police, saying (with only the Gamespot interview to go by) that Sam & Max is already saved and coming soon from Telltale. I definitely didn’t read that in the Gamespot story, but I’d be happy if it was true!

What is Telltale really up to? We’ll see! Until then, their site is definitely worth taking a look at.

I just got word that Steve Purcell was working on a new comic project called Spudvision, a sort of collection of various work Purcell has done over the years for various things, including some unreleased Sam and Max concept stuff. After a little Googling, I came across this page on Tantrum Entertainment’s site, dedicated to Spudvision. What do they say?

From the warped strata of Steve Purcell’s visual archives comes Spudvision. Steve Purcell has worked in the fields of comics, games and animation, as well as feature development and story for Industrial Light and Magic and Pixar.

This book contains reams of otherwise unseen visual development from Sam & Max and other puzzlingly obscure projects along with a range of gleefully unhinged mental burblings, all presented through the eyes of Spudvision sole proprietor; Starchie Spudnoggen.

The site also has a picture of Spudvision’s cover, and a handful of samples of the awesome Purcell art that will be contained within. They also talk briefly about Sam & Max 2, which is unfortunate. Spudvision is apparently going to be available sometime in 2004. And as for a new Sam & Max book, well, we’ll see.

On the Internet there is a site called Tantrum Entertainment, and they sell signed Sam & Max posters. You can order them here for $20 (the set of two). The two posters are a large painted version of the “Something’s Not Right Here” artwork, and a huge blown up version of the Sam & Max Outlaws comic from the old LucasArts Adventurer magazine.

Tantrum Entertainment looks to be primarily a comic/graphic novel publisher, co-founded by Maniac Mansion designer Gary Winnick, and artist Frank Cirocco. They also sell Sam & Max posters. Unless I’m wrong (I could be), Gary Winnick and Frank Cirocco were also the two responsible for Mindflight Entertainment, the website which hosted the short Sam & Max animated flash toon a while back.

Sam & Max Freelance Police may be dead, but that hasn’t kept some members of the game’s development team away from making adventure games. Telltale Games, formed by some members of Freelance Police’s programming and production teams, aims to create some new modern adventure games in the style of the LucasArts classics. They haven’t announced anything yet, but they’re probably worth paying attention to.

I’ll be back sometime before next year with some other stuff, honest!

Okay so I’ve had yet another lapse in updating. Its not as bad as the frequent three to six month lapses of the past, but it was a long one. I’m just writing to let you know that I am still here and the site isn’t “dead” or anything. I have a large amount of fan art, and some news clippings to upload, mostly pertaining to the cancellation of Freelance Police, which I hope you’re all still very bitter over.

In the meantime, Spaff of Mixnmojo pointed out a lovely feature which recently appeared in GamesTM magazine about how Sam & Max Hit the Road is more or less the best retro game ever. The article even mentions this site! You can read it here (page 1), and here (page 2). I’ll be back soon with some more stuff.

Sam & Max: A New Hope?
The webcomic VG Cats has published their own take on the news of Sam & Max 2’s cancellation, not surprisingly in webcomic form. Hopefully the Freelance Police wouldn’t resort to that, but it wouldn’t be the first time (or second or third time) Sam and Max found themselves partaking in George Lucas’ grand epic space opera, or whatever it is.

Something Is Right Here (get it?)
In other news, a few people have asked me what the heck the “Something’s Not Right Here” comic is that appeared in Fox Kids Magazine. It was, more or less, a giant illustration of Sam and Max in their office, filling up two pages of the magazine, in which everything had gone wrong.

There was a train coming out of Sam’s desk, a giant squid outside their window, the wall was slowly becoming unzipped, etc, and readers were supposed to spot the mistakes. A decoder key was included later in the magazine, but the mistakes listed were a bit odd, like the fact that the train was late, or Max’s nailpolish wasn’t his color. Anyway, Steve Purcell did a painting based on the original “Something’s Not Right Here” illustration, and has sent me a scan of it for you to all enjoy.

I’ll be back in a few days with some new reader-submitted fan art, and a tale or two about how people have responded to Sam & Max 2’s untimely cancellation.