Comic-Con Adventures, 2007 edition
Posted by emily July 29, 2007

From left to right: Dave Grossman, Mike Stemmle, and Steve Purcell. Photo care of Mike Stemmle's camera.

The story so far: Last Friday, we loaded up Jake's parents' Highlander with all the merchandise we would be selling at Comic-Con and he drove down to San Diego. The rest of us followed on airplanes a few days later, with the end result of eight Telltalians converging on Comic-Con City by Wednesday night. On Thursday, we realized we couldn't find the camera we'd so diligently packed anywhere. On Friday, Jake remembered he's packed a second camera, but that, too, had mysteriously vanished. This left us, at around two o'clock on Friday, defeated by the fact that our attempts to blog from Comic-Con would be depressingly without graphics. Which, as everyone knows, is a boring way to blog.

Elsewhere in San Diego, Mr. and Mrs. Herrera (parents of Daniel) were on their way to visit their son at the convention with a digital camera in tow. They let us borrow it, and we took a bunch of pictures of our booth and the Sam & Max costume and the LucasArts booth where every single game they ever made was encased in glass. But then! We tried to get the pictures off the card reader and somehow ended up with a corrupt file system on the memory card, effectively wiping out all the pictures we'd taken, as well as years' worth of Herrera family memories. (We're sorry.)

But then!! We had a signing at our booth with Steve Purcell, Dave Grossman, and Mike Stemmle, and Mike had a camera that he let us use. So now we have pictures, and this blog can finally be posted. Horray!


A picture taken for us by a fan named Allen Barrett, at the height of the Great Camera Despair of 2007. From left to right: Chuck, Jake, Dave, Daniel, Doug, Theodore, Emily, demo machine.

Camera woes aside, it's been a good show. On Thursday morning, we did our panel with Hothead Games, developers of the Penny Arcade Adventures. Chris Remo of Shacknews was the moderator. It was really interesting to hear Hothead's perspective because what they're doing -- and their philosophy in general -- is really similar to ours. It's like looking in a mirror (or, more accurately, looking back a year to the time right before we released the first episode of Sam & Max...)

During the panel, we teased the audience with a few concepts from Season Two and a brand new render. What, you want to see them too? Well, here you go!



On Thursday afternoon, we tried out the full-sized Sam & Max costume for the first time. We had been told the suit was built for a 5'9" wearer, so we found a guy who's 5'9" to wear it. Unfortunately for all involved, the suit is actually built for someone who's 5'6", so the pants are a little funky. But all in all it looks great, and it's hilarious to see a great big Sam lumbering around. He can't get very far without being stopped by a gaggle of picture-taking admirers, and small children run up and spontaneously hug him. (Much better than bursting into tears, which is what I was afraid of.)


Sam posing with Playboy's Miss November 1998 and a small boy. Welcome to Comic-Con. Also: Sam and Max posing with Nick, and with Mike Stemmle. Click a thumbnail for even more costume and signing pics!

Intern Nick has been following the Sam suit around with a video camera but we forgot to bring a firewire cable with us, so you'll have to wait until next week to see the spoils of these excursions. Here's a hint: Mega Man is involved.

As far as merchandise goes, we have pretty much everything we sell in our well-stocked store, plus a few new goodies. Following up on last year's The Age of S & M (which is still available right here in Telltale's store), Steve released a new sketchbook this year, called The Effigy Mound. Back by popular demand are cringe-worthy requests from the censors on the cartoon show ("Sorry, but the flatulence jokes are still unacceptable."), plus concept art and a bunch of other neat stuff most people in the world have never seen before. We also have a brand new print here, based on the art Steve did for the Season One Bonus DVD.

We know, we know, it's just not fair that we're at Comic-Con with brand new sketchbooks and a brand new print, and you're not. We can't stand to make you mad, so here's a compromise: we'll be adding the new sketchbook and print to the store in the very near future. (We would have added it already, but things like setting up products in the store are unbelievably annoying when you're in San Diego mooching off some other booth's wireless internet...)

The signing was well attended, with lots of adventure game fanboys (and girls) showing up to have discs, sketchbooks, and prints signed. I used the opportunity to get Steve to sign my copy of Surfin' the Highway (I'll scan the picture and post it once I get back home, because it's awesome.)

One last little gem: Steve's Sam & Max webcomic was up for Best Digital Comic in Friday night's Eisner Awards... and and he won! He got a trophy and everything. We'd take a picture of it for you to see... if only we had a camera.
Tagged Bone, Events, Sam & Max Digg this entry Send this to a friend 30 Comments
best.blog.ever
Comment by Hero1 July 29, 2007, 2:25 am
Awesome! I hope Steve continues with the webcomic.
Comment by tobar July 29, 2007, 2:52 am
Furthermore: The old man is the best and tiny tiki looks amazing!
Comment by tobar July 29, 2007, 2:54 am
Congrats to Steve on the very well deserved Eisner Award. The Season 2 art looks amazing! Looks like you guys had fun.
Comment by Rasher July 29, 2007, 3:07 am
I see that the Telltale Interloper is in print form. This may sound like a silly question, but are the contents of which going to be part of a future e-mail newsletter? There is something strangely appealing about having a printed copy, though, but I suspect that it wouldn't be very cost effective to ship them to everyone.
Comment by mhaley July 29, 2007, 4:10 am
Huh, so that's what Nick looks like. I would never think he was old enough to be an intern.

Then agian, that TTG Group Shot? Yeah, you guys look like you came straight out of college.

God, I must be getting old.
Comment by Zeek July 29, 2007, 4:19 am
Nooo, my evil plot of stealing your cameras every time somethings big happen have failed!
Damn you Daniel's parents, damn youuu... *vanishes into the dark*
Comment by fajerkaos July 29, 2007, 4:34 am
*quickly pops back from darkness* Hmm, I knew that I should have reed the whole thing before posting.

Great blogpost, pictures, merchandise, and new concept art. Love the monkey =)
Comment by fajerkaos July 29, 2007, 4:45 am
... And after locking at the whole picture I realised it wasn't a monkey. I should just not post here at all.
Comment by fajerkaos July 29, 2007, 4:49 am
Sea Monkeys are -not- primates!
Comment by yamman July 29, 2007, 5:20 am
I 2nd the Best Blog Ever award. :D Nice to see all of you and read about it. I like the suit and the screenshots. The concept art looks very intriguing. : ) Good to hear about the merchandise too. The renders look great. I see the artists and modelers are getting a lot better with textures/normal maps and shading. : )
Comment by AdamG July 29, 2007, 7:01 am
Aww, I want my bonus disk to be signed too. ;_;
Comment by dg10050 July 29, 2007, 7:01 am
maaaan... Steve should have released all the stuff he had into one book instead of splitting it up into two
Comment by xChri5x July 29, 2007, 10:21 am
I'm so glad no one ever referred to me as "Intern Deirdra".
Comment by Squinky July 29, 2007, 10:33 am
...small children run up and spontaneously hug him.


They're not...terrified of Max? Poor, poor, children...they need to play season 1! :D
Comment by Kedri July 29, 2007, 11:55 am
Glad to see that my photo worked out for you guys :)
Hope to see you back in SD next year.

-Allen
Comment by AllenB July 29, 2007, 12:05 pm
Sam & Max Meets Playboy! Now THAT'S a game I want to play!
Comment by The Tingler July 29, 2007, 12:29 pm
You are all amazingly coordinated fashion-wise in that group photo (nice earth color theme going there)! :)

Playboy model, small boy and Sam with Max costume. :D
Comment by Mel July 29, 2007, 2:11 pm
I'd really love to be there and meet you guys!!!
I'd have defenetly brought my cam.
Comment by Bruno83 July 29, 2007, 2:19 pm
Pff, Emily is way better then the Playboy model. : )
Comment by AdamG July 29, 2007, 4:02 pm
from that other render I see, Sam and Max's office is going to be cluttered with stuff at an alarming rate...
Comment by pheeph July 29, 2007, 4:28 pm
Eveyone gonna have someone they know complain that there is the card of 'I did not have sex with that woman' In the office!
Comment by Trixie July 29, 2007, 4:37 pm
I will complain as much about the card as I did about the president's head being punched off, which is none at all. ; )
Comment by AdamG July 29, 2007, 4:56 pm
Nice noisy shirts! Mike Stemmle wins!
Comment by Erwin July 30, 2007, 9:42 am
Nice to see your faces!
I wish I could have attented.
Comment by Lunatik July 30, 2007, 10:26 am
Hummana-hummana-hummana!
Miss November, ey?
Wish I was the guy in the suit with the funky pants! I don't think I would have let go of her!
Ahem... nice artwork and renders for season 2, by the way. If only it were Fall aleady.
Comment by Smollie July 30, 2007, 4:11 pm
I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to the Comic COn for the first time this year, and I have to say the highlight for me was having Steve autograph and sketch in my original Surfin' The Highway book. To show my appreciation I also picked up booth sketch books :) It was great!
Comment by Barak July 30, 2007, 4:18 pm
SEason two! Season two! Oh new borders of pleasure!
Comment by drcancerman July 31, 2007, 9:38 am
i hope they have cool songs like Season 1 :D
Comment by splash1 August 14, 2007, 12:38 pm
The only thing that makes me sad is that I never went. But I don't think my parents want to go all the way to san diago for a comic con D8 I love in England and there not into that kind of thing. Its probably expensive to! If only you guys went to the ones in London! Man that would be awesome! I have to say you should have had someone seperate for the max costume! I would have loved to be max XD I made my own one for the London expo and the same happened to me, loads of kids came up, I was also supprised they weren't scared!
Comment by Kitmit13 October 22, 2007, 1:51 am
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