FANS OF PHILOSOPHY, PROSE, AND HIGH ART
Will be sorely dissapointed by the contents of this article.

Sequential Art Storytelling Tuesdays, being a weekly periodical collecting and reviewing the finer material of the lowbrow, crudely illustrated sequentials known as "comics" for the purpose of analysis and intelligent discussion.  As the editor of this fine documentation, I put to use my powers of fine critique to force my opinion on you, the reader, whom I assume to be of a lower to middle class for enjoying the mentally insulting form of telling stories that we call the funny papers.

Holy jumping  mother o'God in a side-car with chocolate jimmies and a lobster bib!  It's SAM & MAX WEEK!



2008, being the year of the lagomorph (and not the Rat as some communist countries would tell you), heralds the release of more Sam & Max merchandise than you can throw your dirty dollars at.  Written and penned in the early 80s by the now Pixar screenplay writer and artist Steve Purcell, Sam & Max gained popularity amongst young and old for its slapstick humor intertwined with witty and sarcastic (if not sardonic) humor.  Recollected in a scrumptuous paperback package is the entirity of the Surfin' the Highway comic book run.  Men and women with thicker wallets can also preorder the limited edition hardcover, signed and numbered by Purcell, directly through Telltale games website.

Newcomers wary about spending 20 simoleans can peruse the archives of the S&M (lol) eisner award winning webcomic (which, ironically, hasn't been updated in more than a year).

Do you enjoy music, a much finer art than comics?  If you answered yes, then spend your hard earned dead presidents on the Sam and Max Season 1 Soundtrack.  Masterfully done by Bay Area Sound composer Jared Emerson-Johnson, this two disc collection features a mixture of contemporary and freeform jazz and a variety of 70s swing from the hit vidya gaym that's sweeping the Point 'n Click genre.

If you believe comics to be the lowest form of modern entertainment, you are only half correct.  Animation is the lowest form and you should be ashamed for enjoying such bilious tripe.  Collected for the first time in all its faux glory is the Sam & Max animated series, originally aired on FOX Kids in the late 90s (if you blinked, you missed it).  This DVD pack, available at any low end retailer of cheap merchandise, is a fine edition to any sweaty fat man's library.  Various videos can be found on the horrendous internet video record keeping website known as Youtube.

Now that you have gotten your fill of blatant advertising for terribly written material, it is time to highlight more original and quality material you may or may not have heard of.

Superman: The Man of Steel

IESB reports that Superman Returns director Bryan Singer will be returning to direct the sequel, a 200 million dollar film that was received with lukewarm reception due to its lack of action and "humanizing" of everyone's favorite iconic super hero.  Rather than revamping the characters a la the upcoming Incredible Hulk and Punisher: War Zone, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman will be continuing where the previous movie left off.

This week, in comic book reviews, is Vertigo's rather new series Northlanders, a limited release comic currently on its fourth out of eight issue.  The tale revolves around a viking named Sven who leaves the decadent life of Constantinople (now Instanbul) to reclaim his inheritance which was stolen by his corrupt uncle.  While the art is certainly refreshing and generates an overall feeling of excitement, Brian Wood takes too many liberties with the writing.  11th century characters screaming "Fuck" and other modern expletives every sentence is detracting from an otherwise okay story, and Sven as a main character is an unlikeable jerk who would only appeal to immature High Schoolers who think looking GRIMFACE and mean is cool.


(cool art + generic writing = average series, check it out if you like sex and blood)

I give it 3/5 Brian Ungers

Finally, it is sad to report that Dave Stevens, creator of The Rocketeer and an artist of pinups containing females in states of undress, passed away yesterday, March 10, 2008, from Leukemia.  May he rest in peace.

That's all for this week.  Tune in next week when I berate your intelligence for "tuning into" written text.  Perhaps I shall discuss a generic comic book topic such as the literary value of the upcoming Watchmen film or the artistic stylings of Jean Giraud.


EXCELSIOR!