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popculturebuffet · 1 year ago

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Sam and Max: Bad Day on the Moon Review (Comic and Cartoon, Comissioned by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy freelance police. 54 years today a bunch of brave explorers took one small step for man one giant leap for mankind. And sometime in the 90's a dog and a lagomorph decided to take another step and also do some bloodshed on the side. Today we honor these brave men and whatever max is with a look at Bad Day on the Moon. Yes folks it's time for the moment i've been waiting for since this project began: a look at the comics that spawned the games and tv show. Sam and Max started as a comics trip Purcell did in high school and then college. Years later when a friend needed a second title for his comics imprint, he asked Steve for help and thus sam and max lept to the page, eventaully leaping to screen as Purcell started working at LucasArts. He made a total of four issues which were collected in "Surfin the Highway", a 90's collection that now goes for around 150 dollars.. as does the reprint from 2008 which Kev has, but unlike other times he's sent me stuff to review, he had.. shall we say ENTIRLEY VALID reasons for not sending me this. Why Skunkape hasn't tried to do a reprint yet I do'nt know, but i'm hoping they do and i'll be first in line. Thankfully the internet exists, so I could still get my greasy mits on these stories.

As for why this story in paticular out of all the comiic stories there's a few reasons: the first is later today (or tommorow if all dosen't go well) we'll be looking at "Bright side of the Moon" the duo's second trip to the moon, and it only felt right to do the first. The second is that it's the ONLY story out of the four (All of which I intend to cover at some point, don't fret), that got adapted for the cartoon. Yeah weirdly despite being an adaptation they only did this one story. Are the others too inapproriate or did they just have too much fun making up their own stories? did they just not fit?

Having only read this story I can't answer that. What I can tell you is that i'll also be looking at the adaptation, hence the comic and cartoon in the title. Since the plots are near identical with simply a few little tweaks in presentation here and there i'll primarly be following the comics version, for the nifty and easily accesiable visuals, while pointing out what the cartoon changes or how it presents certain scenes. Finally this story is notable for being the only one from any other medium refrenced in the telltale games, so to hearld the end of the first of that trilogy , it only felt right to get the story behind that picture in the office. Though honestly continuity wise.. I just consider all three versions in the same canon. There's nothing really contradicting it other than this adaptation and since bad day goes about the same way, we can just say the comic happened and the animation is just a pared down version of the actual events.

And yes Darla's absent, but she likely jsut went to college, is doing some goverment work or got tired of her adopted fathers weird shenanigans and while still sending them a postcard and a father's day card now and again, moved to michigan to work in peace. Maybe something for me to pick up on someday. For now let's see why this day's so bad and maybe if we laugh at it it'll go away.

The opening of BDOTM is the biggest change between mediums. In the cartoon it's a pretty simple but fun cold open: Sam and Max are chasing a perp, the perp turn out to be a rat named Sticky who stole a popsicle and this being sam and max they naturally come at him with a tank.

The Comics version is a tad more complicated, with them taking Sticky back to the ice cream man they stole some. Tragically it's not clint howard so when the rats show up instead of ending up in ice cream treats and woefully outclassed, the guy is HEAVILY implied t be dead. OUr heroes decide to nope out of this by threatning the rats with horrible experiments. The experiment gag is a little chuckle, but I really loved their pitch black interactions with the ice cream man afterwords.

I will NEVER get tired of these two bloodthirsty weirdos. NEVER. Point and click gameplay yes, this no. I can see why the intro was cut down as it's just not as funny without the corpse, much like Weekend and Bernies: The Animated Series, and honestly.. I prefer the shorter version. The Ice Cream Man jokes are funny.. but their only two panels. The protection racket rats, while neatly wearing various garbage (and my faviorite wearing a whole tomato), as their disguises , are just kinda there. And as much as the cartoon got away with including gay marriage, tones of pretty horrifying subtext and max really being just as deranged as ever, a dead body is asking a LOT. And the tank gag is simply punchier, quicker and acomplishes the same stuff. A nice extra the comic does have though is Flint Paper, the duo's neo noir roomate. It's essentially if Dirty Harry had an office next to IMP.. which given how he lived his life is not only probable but entirely canon now in my head. We get our ususual phone call shenanigans with Sam just.. standing on max this time, hilaroiusly, and we also get my second faviorite gag of the comics version

It's simple. Flint Paper also casually stabs a mailman. Geee I can't imagine why he never showed up in the cartoon.

From here the plot and MOST of the jokes become the same for both versions: Sam and max gather some junk food and assorted doodads, then take the desoto to the moon somehow.

And on the moon their protected by some really fun looking penny concious moon gear

Though eventually Max, being max just takes his off, Sam ends up following suit, and they can just breathe on the moon, likely because Purcell either didn't want to draw the penny concious moon gear the whole comic.. or he just thought it'd be hilarious to set up them needing it.. only for max to just take the bag off and be fine

We also get Max's brilliant theory as to WHY no one found this out sooner

Our heroes soon get picked up by a lunar lander driven by two mysterious greasers wearing a gorilla mask and a zebra mask

They appricate the lift but not so much the two punks holdling up a convience store.. said hold up does reveal something of vital importance

My sentiments exactly fellas. As you can see just from what bits i'm showing, the humor here is every bit as good, and it honestly surprises me: mostly indy comics take a second or two to really become what the franchise is known for, and while I can't vouch for the first story, this one still seems pretty early on yet is just as fully formed as the cartoon or telltale series. It's telling that the only changes needed to make this an episode.. were simply toning it down slightly. It's also my biggest guess as to why they didn't do more: it's not tha thtey couldn't it was just more fun to do weird shit that fit into the cartoons structure better than reuse the comics and have to deal with all the rigamorle needed to compress it into 11 minutes.

There's a minor joke change here or there, but like I said the plot is mostly the same. Since our heroes succesfuly foiled the robery, the shopkeep figures they might be able to help them and takes these two strange spacemen to their leader. We also get what is EASILY not only the best joke of both versions of this story, but one of my personal faviorites across all three versions of sam and max

It's a nice simple visual gag, puncuated perfectly by Max not letting go of it expsite it not affecting him in any way, that helps move the exposion along.. and honestly ends up overshadowing it. I also love how both versions have a great take on it. Here max never lets up about it but ti's done more casually till the explosion. In the cartoon the gag is longer, but every bit as good as they go through some beauitful moon vistas in the city this time including a people mover.. while max asks every few mintues for him to put his arms down. The ending is also diffrent in both versions: in contrast to the above the cartoon has max's shouting back the guy into a fountain.. where he Still dosen't put them down. I honestly prefer the cartoons version for it's pacing and ending, but the comic's is still plenty funny.

So as it turns out rat people have gone missing, so their big floating head in charge tasks our heroes with solving this crisis, but to do so they'll have to head to the DARK SIDE OF THE MOON!

With that our heroes head to the dark side.. and find something truly horrifying

Yeah i'm not fond of roaches on a good day. I will give the comic credit though for making them both bigger and more realistic and thus more horrifying. As for what their doing...

Again the cartoon tones it down.. it also left out the horrifying mouse bran muffin. Me I think the horror adds to the black humor of them just, lik ea human, casually using these poor beings, while still keeping the horror aspect. Naturally max gets them chased, but our heroes manage to escape.. oh wait no for once only SAM does, max gets vaporized but someone managed to latch his soul onto sam who makes him into a nifty handpuppet.

Yeah that's the trouble with reviewing sam and max.. sometimes all ic an say is that's funny or in this case

One of the only diffrences left between the two narratives is that the big head comes to pick sam up in a limo in the cartoon and they simply go back to the castle he's at in the original. The rats are able to reconstitute max, who we find out is also considred more of a mineral, and Sam already has a solutoin to the roach problem.

So cut to... the roaches being celebrated with a parade on earth as they'll help with earth's garbage, in echange for leaving those rats behind, still getting their creature comforts. We also find out it wawasn't flint who stabbed the mailman but a roach who didn't want them going to the moon because he's a xenophobic little shit. Our heroes thwart him, Sam sings a horrible tune and max either joins in or merficully ends our suffering depending on the medium. Happy day. Bad Day on the Moon is a pretty good sam and max tale. The only real place it lacks polish is the ending which just kinda.. happens and in the comic loops the roach in because. It has probablyt he thinest plot of any of these. What makes it work so well though is the barrage of great jokes. THe plots one of the weaker sam and max plots i've seen but jokewise this comic has so many bangers i'ts hard to keep track and easy to forgive the weak third act when you have greatness like "You can put your hands down now". All in all a solid recommendation Next Time on Sam and Max: I'll be wrapping up save the world as our heroes have ot head back to the moon, alice, to save the world from Hugh Bliss and his space cult. Stay tuned and thanks for reading

#sam and max #sam x max #bad day on the moon #sam and max freelance police #rats #the moon #roaches #comics

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