oh hell yeah!

let me also silently pray this leads to some more intense Sam & Max tickle story inspiration

We'll see about that!

(It's sadly nothing I have control over, but if it does happen, it'll probably involve hypnosis, too, since that's a major theme of Season 1)

Oh I get that as well. I get inspiration for my own non commission tickle fics once in a blue moon

It's a long-running franchise that had its beginnings with Steve Purcell's childhood - or more specifically, his brother.

Steve, rapscallion that he was, would doodle dialogue in his brother's comics after he left them laying around the house, having them mix up each others' names, over-explain things, and just in general act zany. Dave, Steve's brother, eventually gave him the characters to do with as he wished - and even made it a signed contract, and Steve eventually began to produce comic strips for College's weekly newsletter.

Later, he remade and formally published his comics, when given the offer, and thus were the Sam & Max comics born and entered into the mainstream - not with a fanfare, but with a slide whistle.

Sam & Max are freelance police, and also detectives - they're violent, show no regard for life (not really even their own) and follow an impossible logic that somehow works.

Sam is the large brown dog, technically an Irish Wolfhound, with the big, bare feet. He's the more wordy of the two, with a bit of a dry wit. Whenever something startles him, he usually reacts with a minimum of a three word phrase, often including multi-syllable words. He's also *extremely* possessive of Max, and will go on a rampage if his little buddy is hurt in any way. (Except the one time he killed Max by suffocating him with a pillow, because Max asked if there's a heaven. Like I said, little regard for their own lives.)

Max is a lagomorphic bunny-like thing, with razor-sharp teeth and absolutely no clothing at all. If you ask how he carries everything, he'll tell you it's none of your business. Max has the attention span of a needle, but is always the most eager for violence. He's also extremely short and, when his violence would actually save the day, is quite ineffectual. Strangely, he's the most likely to get emotionally attached to basically anybody and anything, seemingly at random.

Also, a one-season cartoon series was made, and for many other people, this was their first exposure to Sam & Max. It had some jokes based off of the original comics (and indeed, I believe, one episode is not only lifted straight from the comics, but even acknowledges this) but was also its own thing, and managed to make fun of the censors while still being within that range of acceptability.

Basically, I got into the series with the Telltale games, got a crush on Sam, and the rest is history. Literally - I delved into history and the only Sam & Max content I haven't consumed are the original newsletter comics (though I've read the remakes) and the VR game (which I think isn't even out yet?)