Steve Purcell

Steven Ross Purcell (born October 1, 1961) is an American cartoonist, animator, game designer and voice actor.

Purcell entered into a career with comic books while an undergraduate at the California College of the Arts in 1980; he produced comic strips for the weekly newsletter.

These strips featured Sam and Max, an anthropomorphic dog and rabbit duo who work as vigilantes and private investigators; Purcell drew the first strip the night before the deadline.

Following his graduation in 1982, Purcell became involved in freelance illustration, working briefly for Marvel Comics, Chaosium, and on Steven Moncuse's Fish Police series.

He performed freelance work for Marvel Comics and Fishwrap Productions before publishing his first Sam & Max comic in 1987.

Moncuse approached Purcell about the possibility of another comic book series to accompany his well-performing Fish Police series in 1987.

Purcell agreed, and wrote his first feature-length comic using the characters of Sam and Max.

The 32-page comic was published by Fishwrap Productions in 1987.

The comic contained two Sam & Max stories: "Monkeys Violating the Heavenly Temple", a name that Purcell found on a firework and thought was appropriate; and "Night of the Gilded Heron-Shark".

Purcell published a further story in a 1987 issue of Critters titled "Night of the Cringing Wildebeest".

These three stories established the basics for Purcell's future work with the characters.

Purcell was hired by LucasArts as an artist and animator in 1988 and worked on several LucasArts adventure games, including the first three Monkey Island games, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Sam & Max Hit the Road.

Purcell was hired by LucasArts, then known as Lucasfilm Games, as an animator in 1988, but was subsequently laid off when the project he was working on was canceled.

He was rehired to produce art for the graphic adventure game Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders.

Purcell was later commissioned to create the cover artwork for Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games and researched into whips for the adventure game version of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

He worked with animation in several LucasArts adventure games, published three more Sam & Max comic books during this time, and began creating brief comic strips for LucasArts' quarterly newsletter, The Adventurer.

The characters eventually became involved as training material for LucasArts programmers working with SCUMM, the core game engine used by LucasArts adventure games; Purcell created versions of Sam and Max in their office for new programmers under Ron Gilbert to practice on.

References to the characters were occasionally made in unrelated LucasArts adventure games as a clandestine appearance in backgrounds.

Purcell decided to base the game on one of his earlier Sam & Max stories, the 1988 story "On The Road".

Purcell wrote the six-issue comic book series Defenders of Dynatron City for Marvel Comics in 1992.

After a positive reaction to the Sam & Max strips in The Adventurer and wanting to expand into other franchises following Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island, LucasArts offered to create a graphic adventure game on the characters in 1992.

Sam & Max Hit the Road was conceived and developed by a small team headed by Purcell, Sean Clark, Michael Stemmle and Collette Michaud.

In 1995, Purcell combined all published Sam & Max printed media into a 154-page paperback compilation titled Sam & Max: Surfin' the Highway.

After producing the cover art for Herc's Adventures and concept art for The Curse of Monkey Island, Purcell left LucasArts.

Purcell joined with story editor Dan Smith from Canadian studio Nelvana to create an animated television series of Sam & Max in 1996.

Purcell collaborated with Nelvana to create a Sam & Max television series in 1997, and briefly worked as an animator for Industrial Light & Magic after leaving LucasArts.

The result was the 1997 series The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police, broadcast on Fox Kids in the United States, YTV in Canada and Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.

Purcell wrote the jokes for each installment of the 24-episode series, and wrote the scripts for four episodes.

Despite the violence and profanity common in the Sam & Max franchise having been toned down due to the target audience of children, Purcell was content that the characters maintained their moral ambiguity.

Some parent groups in the United States attempted to have the series pulled from networks due to content issues; Purcell was pleased that they "had managed to ruffle some feathers along the way".

During the development of the television series in 1997, Purcell co-authored and illustrated the Hellboy Christmas Special with Mike Mignola and Gary Gianni.

After the conclusion of the Sam & Max animated series, Purcell was briefly employed by Industrial Light & Magic to work on digital effects for a film version of Frankenstein.

Despite his work, the project was canceled; Purcell believes that some of the development work morphed into ILM's contributions to Van Helsing.

While at ILM, Purcell was involved in a project to create an animated film based on Monkey Island; while the project did not reach fruition, Purcell began posting concept art he had produced for the film on his personal blog several years after.

After the brief stint at ILM, Purcell moved to Pixar.

Two Sam & Max comic strips appeared in Fox's Totally Fox Kids Magazine in 1998 to accompany the series; other Sam & Max strips appeared in Wizard and Oni Double Feature.

Despite being employed by Pixar, Purcell acted as an advisor in the development of Sam & Max: Freelance Police, a sequel to Sam & Max Hit the Road that began development in 2002 under LucasArts.

He is the creator of the media franchise Sam & Max, for which Purcell received an Eisner Award in 2007.

The series has grown to incorporate an animated television series and several video games.

A graduate of the California College of Arts and Craft, Purcell began his career creating comic strips for the college newsletter.