Steve Purcell

The other night my old friend Steve Purcell came to Montreal. I hadn't seen him for twenty years. We both went to CCAC (now called, pretentiously, CCA) and he went on to work with ILM, Marvel and now Pixar.

We went, Brigitte, Steve and I, to L'Express, because I could only think of that as the quintessential Montreal eatery. It was a great evening. Here are some of the pics. It's so bizarre that he had the same hat as me, just tan instead of black. But it was a blast.

Brigitte and Capo di tutti capi

Steve giving his "Forever" stare

We gon' hoit you

In another life, they coulda bin a couple

The Steve trademark "Sidelong glance"

Whaddya lookin' at?

The two muscleteers

Sometimes meeting old friends is a real drag, but Steve, the creator of Sam and Max, which happened to be his weekly strip in our college newspaper, of which I was the editor, turned into a phenomenon. And it wasn't a drag. You know how meeting old friends after many years can be awkward; you have nothing in common any more, just the old stories, but Steve isn't like that. He was a consummate communicator back then and he still is, even though he shirked his writing assignments for the paper and instead sent in these mad comics. That's called canny. You really owe it to yourself to get a copy of Sam and Max -- I had the privilege to watch him draw it. A lot of it will go over your heads, but that's Steve.

It's weird. I'm surrounded by people that I knew, sometimes very well, who went on to dynamic careers -- my old friend Mike Mignola, with whom Steve and I shared a friendship -- and who went on to make the Hellboy movies.

And here I remain, on shallow ground. But Flock, I bought some folding chairs for my next GI Joe vs. Gumby installment. You should be proud of me for that. Next episode: The Briefing. And the introduction of the evil Spymaster, Pokey. I may never make Pixar, but I'll sure get even with Gumby. I'll bend him into a green pretzel with bullet holes in it.