Talk:Sam & Max/GA1

GA Review

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Ah. I haven't done a GA review in a while, pardon my rustiness. Anyway, reading through the almighty criteria:

• Prose
  • "The series has been very successful despite its relatively small size" - small size doesn't tell me anything
  • "the episodic video games are considered the first successful application of the episodic distribution model." - clunky
  • "first full story, fully written, penciled and inked by Purcell himself." - redundant
  • I might be wrong, but I think comic stories are put into quotes, not italicized.
  • "containing all comics and strips except the 2005 webcomic, " - it's annoying to reference the webseries, when it comes after the paragraph in question.
  • " Despite his seemingly heartless personality, he believes very much in protecting Sam; however, Max can still act violently towards Sam, often commenting that when he dies he will take Sam with him" - SamSamSam redundancy
• Refs
  • Can't check them now, see below.
  • How do the following sites meet WP:RS: Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Spong, International House of Mojo, Comic Vine, Jog
• Coverage
  • Development, main medium, appearances in other mediums, cultural impact all there. However at some point you seemed to have chopped off the references and final bottom of the page (probably a ref tag not closed.) Also, I think it might make more sense to organize the later translations into an "adaptations" section, like Halo (series), and move the characters up earlier in the article.
• Neutrality, stability
  • Looks fine in this respect.
• Images
  • I'm not sure about some of the nonfree content. The infobox image has a good rationale, and is around the .10 megapixel recommendation. But how do File:Sam & Max 3D.png and File:Sam & Max Issue 1.jpg significantly increase our understanding? The 3D design and comic art are not radically different from the infobox image. The free image's OTRS link checks out. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 15:08, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, mostly all done. All prose issues have been dealt with. I think the refs disappearing was as a result of vandalism, I can see them all fine now. However, I don't think that a restructure is necessary, the series is fairly balanced over what media it uses. Its not like Halo, which is first and foremost a FPS video game series, nor is it like Superman, which is naturally grounded in comics. Sam & Max doesn't really have a single media to pin it down on like that (after all, although debuting in comics, the cultural influence of the series is on the video games industry), so each media section is given equal weight.

As for the images, I've tried to improve the rationales: I think that both are justifiable. File:Sam & Max Issue 1.jpg was included as it seemed relevant to include the cover of the character's first publication, an undoubtedly significant moment in their development following printing in a college newsletter and the like. I was following a similar style as the two comic FAs Superman and Batman, which use similar images with the characters in their typical appearances (File:Detective27.JPG and File:Action1.JPG) for the same purposes as this image. As for File:Sam & Max 3D.png, it's important to remember that the characters' influence has been more on video games than comics, so I thought that some form of visual identification for their altered 3d appearance in these products (representative of the 11 episodes and to an extent Sam & Max: Freelance Police) was prudent. As stated in the article, Sam & Max didn't really get going until the games come out, so this is probably the view of the characters that many people associate with the franchise. Plus, as a very minor point when this image is compared to the other two, its the only one that shows that Max is actually capable of standing on his own two feet. -- Sabre (talk) 16:20, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Then why don't you swap the infobox image out for the 3D one? --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 16:30, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Because that's their common appearance, in a specific artistic style (a more refined version than that you can see on the first issue cover image) adopted sometime around 1993. That's the style of image that is on the video game box art, in the later comics and official websites, and how they appear in the TV series and the first video game. The 3D incarnation is much more recent, from 2006. I think they can probably co-exist happily in the article. -- Sabre (talk) 19:30, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

---

Ok, Sources. I'm not too good at justifying sources, but I'll try my best:

• Rock Paper Shotgun is written and run by four high profile British video game journalists (as high profile as you get for video game journalists that is). All four write for PC Gamer, and occassionally do work on 1UP, IGN, and the like. One in particular (Kieron Gillen) is largely responsible for the way that video games get covered in the industry's media (see New Games Journalism). Shouldn't be any problems for reliability here. Article in question is written by Alec Meer, a fairly well established journalist who in addition to PC Gamer writes for 1UP and PC Format.
• Spong: I went out on a limb here. I got this source from Grim Fandango, which is an FA. The source was there when the article was promoted last March, so I'm assuming that it has been verified as a reliable source. Looking at their about page, they aim to be a database, but they do journalistic stuff as well - in this case, it is the latter sort of content being cited. They seem to have an editorial process and a structured staff. -- Sabre (talk) 19:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
• International House of Mojo is part of LucasArts Fan Network, LLC, established back in 1997 and host to some twenty odd sites, some user-generated wikis, others, like International House of Mojo, with some form of editorial process and pernament staff. Looking around, this is the one with the most high-profile activity on in out of all the LFNetwork sites. They've conducted interviews with many of the big developer names in this particular area (Simon Jeffery, Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert, etc) from which one could reasonably assume that these people regard the site as reputable. I know they've been cited in places, but I can't darn well find the links again.
• Comic Vine probably isn't the most ideal source, but it serves its purpose. The main bit of the source that's relevant is the image of the comic in it: I just needed something to show Comico published some Sam & Max stuff, and the image shows that they did. Not an ideal source, but I suppose that I'm really citing a primary source published elsewhere. -- Sabre (talk) 19:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
• Jog is not a reliable source, its a blog by a nobody. I've removed it. The only reason it was there was because I had a nightmare trying to find something with "First Comics" and "Sam & Max" in it, most of it ended up pointing to people talking about the first comics they ever read: the name was too generic to actually yield results. I've hidden the bit about First Comics for now, hopefully I can find a better source for it later.

-- Sabre (talk) 19:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• I'm still not sure about Comic Vine (specifically using it for an image.) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 20:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll have to ditch it then. As with First Comics, the game is too generic for the search engine, I just get every result under the sun for 'Sam & Max comic' rather than 'Comico'. I can't find something reliable-ish that directly states "Comico published this", even though they did. Ah well, verifiability over truth I suppose. I've hidden the publisher name and removed the ref. -- Sabre (talk) 23:34, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I will do a final pass. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 01:23, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

The Giant Bomb wiki is an unreliable source. 92.2.188.40 (talk) 14:28, 17 March 2009 (UTC)