Quick Rating: Three Scooby Snacks!
Title: What A Ghoul Wants; Trouble in Store
Isn’t it time for a Scooby Doo/Predator crossover?
Writer: Alex Simmons, Ivan Velez Jr.
Artist: Joe Staton, Andrew Pepoy, Robert Pope, Jorge Pacheco
Letters: Nick J. Napolitano
Editor: Joan Hilty
Have you noticed that no one seems obsessed with getting a good comic book out there to tie-in to Scooby Doo 2? Is there some rule that you can’t promote the industry unless the characters originated in comic books? In our desperate insistence that comic books can be written for adults, do we have to create a school-age slum where we shunt off the comics written for children? Why is the kid’s area of a comics shop inevitably filled with yellowed, wrinkled pamphlets in a damp corner? Do we really hate children that much?
The mind reels thinking about the editorial meetings involved in producing an issue of Scooby Doo. Just how restricted are these stories? And are the restrictions imposed by Warner Brothers, the audience, or the editors themselves? I mean, good heavens, do they have to solve a mystery twice every issue? What I wouldn’t give for a multi-issue arc in which Scooby is kidnapped and Shaggy joins a cult… And yet, the world would seem to be unbalanced if I didn’t read the words “meddling kids” at least once a month…
Despite what a few ignoramuses have said over the years, I do believe that comic books are a wonderful introduction to reading for children of all ages. I’ve never met a comic book reader who was not far outpacing his compatriots in language skills. Of course, this is anecdotal, but I find that my anecdotes are very reliable. (Yours, however, require careful scrutiny.) Younger children seem to lap up the entire run of cartoon-inspired comics that DC is currently producing. I hope that some are finding their ways into households in which the adults are not disposed toward reading comics. Maybe then the wee ones can introduce the big ones to the joys of mixing words and pictures.
This edition in the Scooby Doo franchise contains the usual story duo in which the Mystery Inc. gang solves a pair of mysteries. The first story features a humorous walk-on character who adds a great deal of life to the tale. On the other hand, the tale hints at actual supernatural events, which may bother the skeptics out there. The second story is similar in narrative, but is enlivened by an artistic style that deviates a bit from the norm. Velma looks a bit off-model, but I actually liked the change. A few recent issues have featured somewhat different looks for the art, but this is the first one that seems to fit.
You may not buy this for yourself, but buy it and give it to the first child you see passing by the door of the comics shop.
March, 2004