There are two possibilities when you first encounter Sam & Max. One possibility is that you won't get it; at best, it will seem odd and mildly amusing.

The other possibility is that your jaw will drop in amazement that someone out there speaks your secret language - the language of a style of humor that you didn't realize anyone else knew, apart from you and perhaps a few close friends. You'll feel as if you've been reading Sam & Max all your life, saying the same quirky lines back and forth with your friends. And you'll be laughing like crazy.

Sam & Max are freelance police, a six-foot-tall dog who dresses like a 1940s gumshoe, and a white rabbity thing with serious self-control issues. Both carry very large guns, and they're not afraid to use them on anyone or anything.

They live in a world that is completely insane, filled with volcano cults, frightening clowns, criminal rats, giant Moon roaches, ghosts that haunt Stucky's roadside restaurants, and accountants turned pirate - along with uncounted other oddities from the incredible imagination of Steve Purcell.

The violence is not extreme. Well...okay, there's a lot of shooting. A typewriter may have been hurled through an upper-story window. There may have been a disintegration or two. Perhaps an attempted human (dog? rabbit?) sacrifice. Children too young to understand irony probably won't get Sam & Max, but anyone over the age of ten or so would probably be ready.

Sam & Max have been published in many formats over the years. There have been a few comic books from different companies, a guest appearance here and there, some webcomics, a few animated computer games, a TV series with somewhat toned-down versions of the characters, and most recently a Wii game.

This book collects most of the print versions and many of the webcomics. Pick it up, give it a try! If you're one of the people who gets it, you'll be thanking me. ( )