The character of Sam was born in 1986 when Bil Gallagher was in 3rd grade. Bil’s teacher had given his class an assignment to write and illustrate their own short story. The student who wrote the best story would get to read it over the intercom to the entire elementary school. Unsure of what to write about, Bil asked his mother for help. Herself a teacher at a local preschool, Mrs. Gallagher offered young Bil this simple and sound advice; “Write about the things you like”.

So Bil racked his little brain and came up three things that he liked; Dinasours, the movie Back to the Future, and his poodle... Sam. Bil took those three elements and strung together a masterpiece in which Sam snuck into a time machine built by Dr. Nut, traveled to prehistoric times, befriended a Brontosaurus, returned with him to the present, and convinced Bil’s family to let him live in the back yard. Needless to say the story was a hit, and Bil got to read it to the entire school. It even garnered a following of youngsters, all eager to read more adventures of Sam the poodle. So Bil did what any creator would do with a smash hit and a growing fan-base... he made sequels. The Sam Franchise was born.

Over the next couple years Bil wrote several more Sam stories. Never forgetting his mother’s advice, he continued to work all the things he liked into each tale. Sam was almost immediately given super-powers, complete with tights and a cape. He fought mutant cats and vanquished evil-doers with his mighty pudding gun (that’s right, a pudding gun... patent pending). He even got to team up with pop-culture icons like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* and Bart Simpson*. But after a while the “Super Sam” craze died down, and took the inevitable backseat to more pressing issues like recess and the spreading cooties epidemic.

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