A dramatization of their reaction to the live-action Scooby-Doo movie.
Scooby-Doo #1
Archie Comics (October, 1995)
COVER ART: Lee Weeks
And that’s the only credit I can find in this comic. I went to the Grand Comic Database and even they didn’t know who worked on it. Then again, given the comic they may just not want to fess up.
Our first story, “Monster Of A Time”, has Shaggy treating the gang to Poormanland, a dirt cheap theme park created by low-budget film director Roger Poorman and inspired by his movies. (Yeah, guess who he’s based on.) However a swamp monster is causing trouble in the park, and so is a pushy couple ruining what little fun Daphne could get out of it. Apparently they were more interested in ragging on theme parks than telling a good mystery. The monster reveal isn’t set up because there’s no mystery here. It’s almost like it exists because it has to. Scrappy does nothing here, and no that isn’t accurate because whatever you think about Scrappy he does usually push the story a bit. This story was a pure dud.
The second isn’t much better but at least there’s an attempt at a mystery. A poor one given what little space they have and being more interested in jokes (and I use that word on a technicality) than the story. “50 Years In Jail!” has the boys (minus Scrappy, who does even less in this story–you know, you don’t have to use him; those of us who don’t hate the character are a minority and don’t usually speak up) going undercover in a prison when their warden friend is plagued by the ghost of a former convict out to get him. There isn’t much to solve because what little mystery there is has no real time to be investigated, but at least it isn’t as obviously shoehorned in as the last one. It still IS shoehorned in but there’s a (weak) attempt to hide it.
Overall this comic was not very good. The art was serviceable, Scrappy is pointless, which makes me wonder if this isn’t the same assassination job Snarf suffered in Thundercats: Hammerhand’s Revenge, and the mysteries are nonexistent. Half the fun of a Scooby story is trying to figure out the mystery and solve it before the gang does, while the gags are a fun bonus to keep things from getting too heavy. Here the jokes miss and the mystery suffers for it. Scooby And Scrappy Doo was more tied to mysteries than this. This isn’t a comic to pick up unless you just need to have all the Scooby stories.
BW Media Spotlight 
I liked the late 1970s Marvel comic books where Scooby Doo and gang appeared. Those were great stories. In fact, I even recall a decent Captain Caveman story in a 1970s Marvel comic. If I remember right, Gold Key also published Scooby Doo comic books earlier in the 70s.
LikeLike