Long ago, in a land far far from here, I lived in a punk rock group house with a lot of fans of Steve Purcells’ Sam and Max characters and their unsavory pals. Sam and Max was a hilariously antisocial comic strip. Assuming one thinks punk humor is hilarious and freelance talking animal police are a good source of humor.

Some time later, LucasArts decided to make a game based on the Sam and Max comics. The internet tells me that LucasArts was Steve Purcells’ day job and Sam and Max were a long-running LucasArts in-joke, which is the sort of little fun fact to know and share that tended to be unknown pre-internet. I could comment on this more, assuming I read all of the background info (which I haven’t yet), but suffice it to say that LucasArts actually made a pretty pleasingly unsavory game based on Sam and Max. The internet also tells me that the characters were eventually made into a television show which aired on a secondary FOX channel called FOX Kids. Which is weird both because it is simply weird and because I’ve never watched it, despite my affection for Sesame Street and Back at the Barnyard.

I’m excited to report that the awesome old Sam and Max comics are all back in print now. Full disclosure: the source of the new mega-packs of Sam and Max comics, DVDs, XBox, swag, etc. is an advertiser on Blue Blood. I haven’t checked out the new game yet, but the printed stuff is definitely worth picking up. Watch out for the bunny.

Friends keep pointing out that there is a bacon of the month club. Actually, I think there may be a number of bacon of the month club options.

The Pig Next Door comes up quickly in a search engine attempt to locate the bacon of the month club. The Pig Next Door offers artisan bacon from sustainably-farmed specialty breeds. If you are a bacon fan, and I am, this sounds pretty good and they offer six month and one year bacon subscriptions, priced according to just how special the pigs are. Speaking of pigs, my friend senior Blue Blood writer Will Judy has a really thing about cartoons of animals being used to sell meat products. He is offended by cartoon cannibalism. Although I did not come to this concern on my own, I always think of it when I see a comic strip style pig raising a trotter to vote in favor of bacon.

So I do a little more research and it turns out that The Pig Next Door is a Johnny-come-lately, started only a year ago, looking to cash in on the bacon of the month concept pioneered by The Grateful Palate. The Grateful Palate has been selling bacon and bacon-related products online for more than a decade. Ah, the joy of the internet age, when nothing is so esoteric a niche that it hasn’t been knocked off and repackaged by someone. In addition to what may be the original bacon of the month club, The Grateful Palate also offers pig noses and pig T-shirt memorabilia. You can always go with the less cannibalistic T-shirt option of showing off the “I got porked by the Grateful Palate” slogan across your chest. You get a shirt and a little rubber toy pig with your bacon club membership. You also get an official Bacon of the Month Membership Card, in case a bouncer ever asks you to show one. And you get a pig nose, in order to facilitate cannibal role play.

My friend writer/director David Aaron Clark once took me to BDSM club The Vault in New York, in its heyday. And there was the option for gents to be dominated while wearing pig noses or masks. I have trouble eroticizing rubber facial prosthetics shaped like pigs or like anything else really. Yet I love muppets, fun fur coats, and the bottom half of most furry costumes. Go figure. For those less specific in their tastes and needs than I am, there is always pet play. Bet you’ve never seen someone in a pig or panda head do that before. Or maybe you have. I’m going to go fry up some uncured, sustainably-farmed, artisan bacon now, even though I’m not yet a member of the Bacon of the Month Club.