Steve Purcell

Steve Purcell
Purcell at the 2008 Game Developers Conference.
Born	1961 (age 55–56)
Residence	Northern California
Alma mater	California College of Arts and Crafts
Occupation	Cartoonist, animator, director, game designer
Spouse(s)	Collette Michaud (1993 – present)
Website	http://spudvisionblog.blogspot.com/

Steven Ross Purcell (born 1961) is an American cartoonist, animator, director and game designer. He is most widely known as the creator of Sam & Max, an independent comic book series about a pair of anthropomorphic animal vigilantes and private investigators, for which Purcell received an Eisner Award in 2007. Since being a comic, 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. He performed freelance work for Marvel Comics and Fishwrap Productions before publishing his first Sam & Max comic in 1987. Purcell was hired by LucasArts as an artist and animator in 1988, working on several titles within the company's adventure games era.

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. He is currently employed in the story development department at Pixar. His main work for the animation studio has been with the 2006 film Cars, the 2012 film Brave and spin-off materials such as shorts and video games. Alongside his employment with Pixar, Purcell has continued to work with comic books and came together with Telltale Games in 2005 to bring about new series of Sam & Max video games.

Purcell entered into a career with comic books while an undergraduate at the California College of Arts and Crafts 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. 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.