Scooby-Doo: Snack Attacked! Review

***THIS REVIEW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON THE NERD BLITZ PATREON***

Back in 2019, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Scooby-Doo, through Wal-Mart I believe, DC put out a 100 page Giant Special that featured 3 brand spankin’ new stories and 6 reprinted stories from the last 15 years or so.

To celebrate the anniversary month, yet again, I will be reviewing the 3 new stories over the next couple of weeks.
These will be my first read throughs too, so, given all of the uncertainty right now about the future of Scooby, I hope they really spark something for me and can give me the classic Scooby fun I’ve been craving.
Let’s dive in and find out!

As you all know by now, this is your official ***SPOILER ALERT***

Art by Dario Brizuela: I’ve come to realize everytime I see stock art in these Scooby comics, Dario is the artist.
He uses the same 4 poses of Shaggy, repeatedly.
Like, 1 specific shot, he uses 7 times…IN A 10 PAGE STORY!!!
It’s bewildering.

His renderings are straight up classic Scooby designs but, holy shit, his output is starting to just feel like collages to me.
They don’t really convey the stories in a satisfying way, they just do the bare minimum to get the point across.
But not everything he does is reused.
There are plenty of new characters and such for him to actually draw.
But I do come back to my other big problem with his art, his blank backgrounds.
When the backgrounds are this devoid of detail, not only do you zip through it faster, it makes you pick up on clues that would otherwise be subtle and only obvious upon reflection.

Now you may be saying “Doom, ease up, this is a kids comic!” to which I would say who gives a shit!?
They were kids comics 20 years ago when I was reading them every single month too.
And back then, while they weren’t always perfect, they had a lot more life, vitality, and reread value to pick out little details in the background.
But this art is so phoned in that it’s barely serviceable to the story.
Art later in this very book painfully prove this point.

Story by Ivan Cohen: The Mystery Inc. gang has made their way to the Scooby Snacks factory where Scoob is set to star in a commercial for the 50th Anniversary of the company.
But somebody has stolen the mother dough, a piece of which is used in every batch of Scooby Snacks, and thrown the future of the snack giant in jeopardy.
Can the gang find the ner-do-well and restore the mother dough and production of Scooby Snacks?

This is a pretty solid Scooby comic story that has a nice twist ending.
There are a couple of great red herrings, no pun intended, that make it interesting and throw you off the trail.
And having the gang in on the plot to hoodwink ol Scooby for his birthing day is a great added touch that puts a fresh spin on things.
If not for the art telegraphing a detail or 2, I think it might have actually stumped me.

Here’s the thing about Scooby comics: for me they have always been a bit of a comfort blanket.
Back in the day, no matter what, I always had another one next month.
When news was spotty and I had no clue if a new DTV Movie was coming or when the next James Gelsey novel was inbound, when life was particularly suck ass, when I felt lonely, Scooby comics were there every month giving me a new adventure with these, at the time, newly found friends.
And there’s something about this celebratory story that brings that back, especially as the future is kind of murky for Scoob and the gang again.

Something I loved are all of the references to the creators of Scooby throughout this story.
They fit in in an unobtrusive way, I’d wage most people that don’t know everybody that was involved wouldn’t think twice.
But I noticed and appreciated them.

Despite some more than lackluster art I’ve found it hard, in comic form at least, to fuck up telling a Scooby story majorly.
I think the only times I’ve been disappointed with a Scooby comic, storywise, have been when the stories were less than 10 pages and felt rushed or didn’t even feature a mystery at all.
This has a satisfying mystery, and what more can you ask for but that?

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