Something Spooky: ‘Scooby-Doo’ And The Case Of The Sinister Seasonal Snack
by Tony Thornley
Everyone has a favorite franchise for the spooky season, even scaredy-cats like me. And in my case, it’s far and away Scooby-Doo.
My love of Scooby-Doo started at a young age. I’m not sure if it was re-runs of the original series on Saturday mornings, the Scrappy-Doo era of the 1980s, or the Scooby-Doo movies on VHS, but — aside from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe — Scooby is the earliest memory I have of cartoons. My family rented Scooby-Doo Meets The Boo Brothers from our local video stores so often, I’m surprised none of them offered to just sell us the tape.
It’s a fandom that I still love today. It’s extremely disappointing to me that Warner Brothers has seemed to actively put Scooby in their vault. There hasn’t been a new Scooby-Doo direct to video movie since 2023 (previously at least one, if not two released each year) and the only news about new media is a live action series in active development and an anime-styled series that was announced but hasn’t had a peep since. Even the comics, a longtime staple of DC’s all-ages line, have been quietly cancelled with the last volume of The Batman & Scooby-Do Mysteries being collected in June of this year, and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? publishing its last issue in February.
That’s a long winded introduction to a column recommending spooky comics for this time of year, isn’t it? And frankly, that’s fair. If it wasn’t a bit of a fake-out, I’d say go on Comixology, buy a handful of issues of any comic with Scooby and the gang on the cover, then sit back and enjoy (seriously, there’s very little that isn’t good). But that’s a cop-out, so I did pick one.
I picked Scooby-Doo, Where Are You #71 because of the very distinctive zombie-soldier on the cover. I had forgotten about the series’ format of 2 stories per issue — the first by Derek Fridolfs, Walter Carzon, Horacio Ottolini, Silvana Bris, and Saida Temfonte, and the second by Embla Malmenlio, Scott Neely, and Travis Lanham — sometimes with single page gags, riddles or informational strips. Just like the last time I visited Scooby comics for the site, I wish this one had been a full issue. The two stories per issue format was probably to ensure the stories kept kids’ attention, but it made for much-too-brief reads in both cases.
Fridolfs and Malmenlio both do a great job setting up interesting mysteries though. The first story has fun with the boot camp setting, and I love that while the gang goes through boot camp, Fridolfs subverts expectations and has Scooby serve as a K-9 officer instead. Malmenlio creates a unique setting and background for her mystery, which makes it pop. The uniqueness of both stories makes the flaws of the format stand out- both were good but would have been better with extra pages of expand on them.
The art is good. It’s very on-model, and both pencillers are good at dynamic layouts. The pages always flow well, and give the story a lot of depth.
Not all of DC’s Scooby comics have been digitized, but quite a few have on Comixology and DC Comics Infinite. And the series has enough of a print run that you should be able to find plenty at your local comic store. Go hunt some down today.
