Steven Ross Purcell is an American cartoonist, animator, game designer, and voice actor.
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He was born on October 1, 1961, and is best known as the creator of the media franchise Sam & Max, for which he received an Eisner Award in 2007.
The series has grown to incorporate an animated television series and several video games.
Early Life, Education, and Career:
Much is not known about Purcell’s early life.
He is a graduate of the California College of Arts and Craft, and began his career creating comic strips for the college newsletter.
He started doing freelance illustration, doing short stints for Chaosium, Marvel Comics, and Steven Moncuse’s Fish Police series. In 1987, Moncuse made contact with Purcell on the potential for a second comic book series to go along with his popular Fish Police series.
Purcell concurred and used Sam and Max as the basis for his first full-length comic book. Fishwrap Productions released the 32-page comic 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.
After a positive reaction to the Sam & Max strips in The Adventurer and wanting to expand into other franchises following Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island, LucasArts offered to create a graphic adventure game on the characters in 1992.
Sam & Max Hit the Road was conceived and developed by a small team headed by Purcell, Sean Clark, Michael Stemmle and Collette Michaud.
Purcell decided to base the game on one of his earlier Sam & Max stories, the 1988 story “On The Road”.
All of the printed Sam & Max publications that Purcell had ever released were collected into a 154-page paperback anthology called Sam & Max: Surfin’ the Highway in 1995.
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Purcell departed LucasArts after doing the concept art for The Curse of Monkey Island and the cover art for Herc’s Adventures.
The Pixar Christmas special Toy Story That Time Forgot, which aired on ABC on December 2, 2014, was written and directed by Purcell in 2014.
Family, Personal Life, and Facts – Parents, Siblings, Wife, and Children:
There is no information about Purcell’s parents and siblings.
He is married to fellow lead designer Collette Michaud.
Michaud, Purcell’s wife, is an artist, animator and video game designer who served as the Art Department Manager at LucasArts Entertainment Company, and was credited on many Star Wars video games.
Michaud, as head of LucasArts art department, visited an annual Producers’ Show where she was impressed by the work of artist Bill Tiller, and hired him for the company.
For Star Wars: Rebel Assault, she cooperated with project manager Vincent Lee, including the challenging task of hiring 3D artists, and assembling an art team for Lee. The character Ru Murleen’s appearance was based on Michaud.
Michaud helped launch Lucas Learning where she served as Project Leader and Designer for Star Wars: DroidWorks and Star Wars Math: Jabba’s Game Galaxy.
In addition to Star Wars projects Collette Michaud worked on two Indiana Jones video games, and was a designer and animator on LucasArts’ Sam & Max Hit the Road video game. She is married to Steve Purcell, former LucasArts artist and animator, and the creator of the Sam & Max: Freelance Police comics.
They got married in 1993, and their wedding cake was topped with figurines of Sam and Max as a bride and groom.
He has two sons.
Net Worth:
Purcell has an estimated net worth of $2 million.
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