Entry tags:

char: max, char: sam, creator: steve purcell, genre: comedy, theme: dude in distress week

Oh, right, like I was going to let this one pass. Assuming that Sam meets the technical specifications of "dude" and not "freakish animal/human hybrid"[1], let's look at him in distress, shall we?



After a case takes them to the Philippines[2], Max is kidnapped. Sam tracks him to a live volcano by following a trail of parts Max has chewed off of his abductors[3]. There our lagomorphic friend is about to be sacrificed to the Volcano God by Volcano Cultists. Sam attempts to turn their superstition against them. It does not go well:



Awww, poor Sam! I don't want him to die! He owes me five bucks.

Things look dire for our heroes! Distress ensues!



Fortunately, a surreal deus ex machina saves the day! And Sam's final words are, for my money, the funniest single line in the history of comics:



Without mercy our heroes push all the cultists into the volcano[4], whose mega-sacrifice wakes the God[5]. Then Max saves the homebound plane from hijackers and is macked on by a stewardess clearly lifted from Steve Purcell's pal Art Adams. The End.

[1] - "Bosco! Sam is standing right here!"

[2] - "Drawn without reference material, apparently."

[3] - "Won't be much left of the driver."

[4] - "They had torches and Frankenstein rakes!"

[5] - "Let's blow this joint!" "Lest we be trod upon!" "I hate when you say, 'lest we be trod upon!"

[6] - I am not a footnote number, I am a free man!