Steve Purcell's "Toybox"

[causticlad]

If I had to pick a single funniest person in comics, I'd go for the sadly unprolific Steve Purcell. So imagine my delight at coming across my long-filed stash of Sam and Max comics last night, as well as another treasure I'd forgotten about. Go on, imagine it. I'll wait.

All of Purcell's published creator-owned comics work is Sam and Max, with this one exception: Toybox. This setting has shown up only twice in print, both in 1993 (though he revisits it on his blog every now and then) and both uncollected since. This one is from Piranha Press' StoryTellers, an anthology series by DC's short-lived creator-owned alternative comics imprint.

Toybox chronicles the adventures of Ernie the Rat and Suda, who is a creepy doll. They live in the eponymous town with a variety of other toyland-like creatures vaguely reminiscent of The Nightmare Before Christmas (which it slightly predates) or Pleasure Island from the 1940 Pinocchio Disney movie. Sam and Max are noted for being funny with an admixture of creepiness, and Toybox, true to its fictional brethren, ups the mixture to about 50/50.

Five pages of thirteen.



We begin with Ernie and Suda off the coast of Toybox, on a fishing trip to catch something "alive" for a party being thrown by Puddy, a giant animate ice cream cone. I know, right?

As you can see, the other major difference between Sam and Max and Toybox is the lush colouring:



The next skipped page establishes the animosity between Ernie and Puddy ("I hate Puddy the frozen dessert goon, Suda. He's a pompous irritant. I'd like to slap his creamy head."), but all is forgotten when Ernie gets a bite:



Turns out this Fiji Mermaid grants wishes too, as Ernie wishes he had a pocket to hold his new backscratcher and becomes a sidecar marsupial, then wishes he'd known about that before making the first wish. He gives the mermaid to Suda for the last one, but when she wishes for a single candycorn and then a nice hat for Ernie -- and both come to fruition -- they rapidly realize they can get infinite wishes by handing the mermaid back and forth to each other.

Naturally they head to Puddy's party, where they lose control of the mermaid to the other guests and I'd say "things start to get weird" but that boat's already sailed. The mayor chimes in:



Ernie wouldn't know good advice if it painted itself purple and danced on the table doing a Blackadder impersonation so he decides to go for one more wish. He really doesn't like Puddy's stories (which, incidentally, my brain insists on reading in George Takei's voice).



While melting, it's revealed that Puddy has an internal skeleton, grossing out Suda and Ernie and seriously disconcerting every reader without an empathy disorder.

Even Ernie decides he's gone too far and tries to use the Fiji Mermaid to fix things, but it's finally expired after too much time out of water. Time to make a break for it!



Remember, kids: "Tiny little heads means never having to say you're sorry."

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go hide under my bed for a while.