Scans_Daily

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.

( Yes, those are coffins raining from the sky on the cover. )