The following news came to me from our intrepid contributor Debbie Anne Perry! Normally, when Deb contributes something to this humble Blog, it is warmly welcomed!
While ANYTHING Deb contributes is warmly welcomed, the "warmth" quickly gave way to a bitter chill...
SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP #50
art and cover by SCOTT JERALDS
Magical fanboy imps Bat-Mite and Scooby-Mite are back—and they’ve brought along a host of Batmen and Scooby-Doos! But when the mites conjure up the ultimate trans-dimensional menace for our heroes to battle, will even a League of Batmen and Society of Scoobies be enough to save their infinite Earths? Plus, can they unravel the mystery behind the shadowy figure known only as…Scrappy-Doo?
ON SALE 09.25.19
$2.99 US | 32 PAGES
FC | RATED E
FINAL ISSUE
Things just keep getting worse and worse, don't they?
First that unfortunate matter with the IDW Disney comics that has, for the FIRST TIME EVER, caused me to intentionally stop purchasing them!
Now, the loss of my favorite current comics title... the amazing SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP!
A comic that never fails to "read as clever and funny" as our team used to make the IDW Disney comics read... thanks to the extraordinary talents of writer Sholly Fisch!
And expertly handling guest characters from all over Hanna-Barbera-Land...
...And the far corners of the DC Comics Universe!
And handling each with equal fan-friendly dexterity!
Like this parallel reference between THE NEW SCOOBY-DOO MOVIES and BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD animated series!
Or commenting on characters' VOICE ACTORS that change over time!
...Or (above and below) the conventions of SCOOBY-DOO itself!
And finally, just plain old wonderful silliness!
HERE is the story of how, by complete chance, I discovered SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP...
...And, alas, this post notes its end!
But, we've been here before... starting in 1984 with the demise of Western Publishing, and periodically to the present day... and Scooby and GOOD Disney comics always seem to come back... somehow!
...I've no doubt they will again!
And, besides... by today's standards, 50 ISSUES is a very respectable run for ANY comic book title, in this age of rapid cancellations and reboots!
And SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP has had a VERY respectable run!
Thank you, Sholly Fisch for those 50 wonderful issues!
Everyone, do yourself a favor and read some issues of SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP, or just live vicariously through some of my Blog reviews...
You won't be sorry!
Bat-Mite's honor!
12 comments:
In a market where Mickey Mouse doesn’t make it past 21 issues, a novelty title like Scooby-Doo Team Up making it to 50 issues is impressive. A lot of books nowadays just run for as many issues as they need for one or two trade paperbacks and then start renumbering with a different story arc.
I’m afraid that’s true of today's comics landscape, Deb!
The funny thing is, that SDTU started as a bimonthly. Then, with issue # 20 (Cover Date: January 2017), it became a MONTHLY!
That gave me a boost of confidence in its longevity. In 2019 it was downgraded to bimonthly again… and, by September, it will be gone!
The “alternate universe” SCOOBY APOCALYPSE was also canceled last month. Will the traditional SCOOBY-DOO WHERE ARE YOU? title (which is half or more-than-half reprints anyway) be next?
Is today’s DC (which I have little regard for, as opposed to DC in the Silver Age thru the early 2000s – where they could do little or no wrong) simply doing away with such titles? A shame if so, because they were a good step toward a more diverse publishing strategy.
Some way to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Scooby-Doo, this September! …HMMPH!
Very sorry to hear this. I wasn't as constant a reader of Team-Up as you, since, not knowing most of the teamed-up-with characters, I wasn't really the target audience. But for what they were, they were quite good. At least, if so much of their appeal resided in the writer, then one can hope that whatever Mr Fisch turns his talents to next will also be worth looking at!
50th anniversary of Scooby-Doo? You don't say?! Why does no one tell me these things!… And hey, this means that there's only a month of difference in-between the 50th anniversaries of Scooby-Doo and The Haunted Mansion, two great spooky tastes that would have gone perfectly together for a special anniversary issue of Team-Up (in the unlikely event that a copyright deal could be worked out). Oh, what might have been.
…curious that they didn't hold Curse of the Thirteenth Ghost for release until the anniversary, actually. Would have been a perfect "event release" for such an occasion… and it would have given them the time to polish it up a bit more! Oh well, I assume that even if the print front is increasingly lacking, something interesting will come out on the screens at least.
I know even less of Modern DC than I do of the 'historical' one, save that they have a deplorable history of acting like "gritty realistic nihilism" is the natural way to go for Batman as opposed to an interesting but vaguely insane what-if that happened to be the basis of a couple of good films and comics. (They also release poor translations of some of their 'graphic novels' in French bookshops in ludicrously overpriced hardcover versions, but that's neither here nor there.)
Achille:
I’m sure I’ve said this elsewhere but EVERY issue of SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP is more than worthwhile! Yes, all the more so, as you say, if you know the guest characters – but just as interesting (and educational in a pop-culture / fun sense) if you don’t!
I cannot imagine that everyone was familiar with ALL the characters in THIS ISSUE - even *I*, as a near-lifelong Silver Age DC fan, was unfamiliar with a very small number of them – but it was a winner all the way!
You can learn about characters with which you are unfamiliar, and more about those you know, just as I did all those years ago when reading THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD (the de-facto “Batman Team-Up” book) and DC COMICS PRESENTS (the de-facto “Superman Team-Up” book)!
All the DC Universe characters, as presented in SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP, are “correct-to-essence” (…Have I just coined a phrase?), but with none of the continuity-heavy, angst-ridden baggage that weighs down their “regular, modern-day comics”! You get a pure and accurate depiction every time! And you don’t need to know much at all, to get right into the story! …You know, the way DC Comics USED TO BE, at one glorious time!
And yes… All of this is definitely on the very singular knowledge base and writing talents of Sholly Fisch! HE GETS IT! HE GETS ALL OF IT! And it is HE who made SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP the great read that it was!
In other hands, the stories would still be good if, for no other reason, than the Scooby characters and guest-characters have such great histories. But the gags – and especially the CHARACTER BITS that I highlight – would not be the same! If you liked the way our team, “The Core Four”, did IDW’s Disney comics, you could not help but LOVE Sholly Fisch’s writing on SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP!
Fisch has also done a great deal for the SCOOBY-DOO WHERE ARE YOU? title, but there he is limited to the TEN non-reprint pages in each issue. And, of course, with no guest stars, the opportunity for those great character bits are seriously diminished. But, I’ll still follow him there… provided DC doesn’t cancel all three of its Scooby-Doo titles this year!
The original SCOOBY-DOO WHERE ARE YOU! animated series premiered in September, 1969! So, yes, this would be Scooby-Doo’s 50th anniversary!
Debuting in 1969 is also the reason “those meddling kids” have rocked that “mod/hippie look” for half a century!
Batman, as a dark character, was actually well-handled from the 1970s thru the later ‘90s, by writers who really understood how to do that for comics, and not make it like a “grim-ripper-fest” modern action movie! Writers like Denny O’Neil (who pretty much ushered it in), Frank Robbins, Steve Englehart, “David V. Reed” (…who “Answer Man Bob Rozakis” at DC once told me wrote VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA under the name of “Robert Vincent Wright” – and whose actual name may have been David Vern), Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon, and Britain’s Alan Grant (of JUDGE DREDD fame) to name a few!
But, as we sidled up to the 21st century – and certainly by the end of its first decade – the focus was more on grotesquery than good storytelling. And that’s why (with few exceptions – and even several fewer over the last year or three) DC and I have been estranged! …They don’t seem to miss me, and I don’t miss them!
…But I ALREADY miss SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP!
Ah, that IS sad news. Though it's true, 50 issues is an impressively long run for a title nowadays. *My* favorite comic--in these sad days when the new American Duck comics are schlock--is Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, and they made a big deal of their 50th issue, though it was #42, because Marvel made all their titles start over at #1 during Squirrel Girl's first year! Astonishingly, it was reported in May that at #42 Squirrel Girl was the highest numbered Marvel comic that wasn't a Star Wars title. More sad news for me: this incarnation of Squirrel Girl, written by the Very Funny (smart-funny!) Ryan North, is coming to an end with issue #50 later this year. It's not a cancellation, it's a decision on the part of the creative team. But still...! What can I say? This is why we can't have nice things.
Due to certain factors in our national news which shall remain unmentioned, I need laughs MORE than I did, say, in 2015. But my sources of laughs are dwindling away. Maybe Ryan North will write something equally funny. As for Sholly Fisch, do you recall my asking you about him years ago at one of our first meetings? I had read and loved some of his Looney Tunes stories which riffed amusingly on bible stories (Noah, Samson & Delilah), and wondered how to find more of such stuff by him. How DO you find stories by comic book creators when they're not in INDUCKS, I asked?
This makes me grateful all over again for the immense gift that INDUCKS has been and continues to be for me. I am now once again (as I was between BOOM and IDW) reduced to finding new-to-me Disney comics only through French and German eBay. But I wouldn't be able to do that were it not for INDUCKS! INDUCKS lets me identify the stories I'm interested in reading (creators or subject matter or both) and the issues that include them, so I can search for those issues on other countries' eBays. This has contributed substantially to my happiness over the years, and is soon to be my sole source of comics-related joy. At least until Ryan North comes up with something new and funny to work on.
Elaine:
I am actually SHOCKED that UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL is coming to an end! Honestly! For whatever the reason may be! Do the publishers really not want books like these? I’m not sure what other conclusion there might be to draw!
…And is 50 some sort of “magic number” these days? Not that I’ve ever checked, or even given it any thought until now, but I wonder how many current comic book titles have numbering over 100? …And IDW’s UNCLE SCROOGE doesn’t count! It’s “official numbering” is below 50!
Oddly, DC’s LOONEY TUNES just passed DELL’S LOONEY TUNES (246) in numbering… it’s probably not long for this world! I fear the same for the (largely reprint) DC SCOOBY-DOO WHERE ARE YOU?, which is creeping up on its 100th issue!
I can’t say I’ve seen many (perhaps any?) non-creator-owned titles come to an end due to “…a decision on the part of the creative team”! If a title is successful, or the publisher wants it for some other reason, they always plug in another creative team and keep going! …In fact, sometimes publishers “plug in another creative team”, even when the previous one is doing a great job - and wants to continue! *Cough! IDW! Cough!*
If Ryan North doesn’t want to write UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL, why not call on Sholly Fisch! The book might even “gain another reader” who is being forced onto a “Fisch-free diet”! If it’s not continuing, there must be some other reason, similar to SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP… and the “gutting” (no “Fisch” joke intended – okay, maybe a little) of the IDW Disney line – which might as well be canceled in actuality, as it was creatively! Egad, I’ve become a comics-conspiracy-theorist!
We ALL need more laughs in our lives – not fewer! As you say, especially now! But, apparently the (ironically named) “comic” book publishers don’t seem to see it that way!
“How DO you find stories by comic book creators when they're not in INDUCKS, I asked?”
Well, I never really tied this before tonight – and did so largely in response to your question, so I can’t truly vouch for its accuracy or completeness – but try my go-to site, GRAND COMICS DATABASE!
Search on “Writer”, enter the NAME of the writer, and sort by DATE! Hey, it even works for ME! …And, if it works for me, it’ll work for ANYONE! …Though my first Super Goof for Gemstone (“Now Museum, Now You Don’t”) seems to be missing! Oh, well, I’m sure it’s on INDUCKS!
Please do not ever think I intend to impugn INDUCKS! It is an AMAZING resource, that I wish we had back in the days when Dana Gabbard, Chris Barat, and I would index this stuff manually! But, for anything non-Disney, GRAND COMICS DATABASE is equally amazing!
…Perhaps even more so, because of the TOTALITY of its vast pool of information!
Again, condolences on Doreen Green!
Aw, Squirrel Girl too? …at least I doubt she'll stay gone for too long, even if there's no telling of the new book will be as good. She made her animated debut not too long ago and all. Disney don't kill profitable franchises they've sunk a lot into — sometimes they transfer them to another department in callous fashion (cough “DuckTales 2017” vs New IDW cough), but radio silence? Nah.
Achille:
Naw, Marvel and DC characters never truly “go away” for very long! They have “character name trademarks” to keep alive! Yes, I was told that was ACTUALLY the reason with BLACKHAWK! So surely, we can apply that to many/most other instances!
The characters always return with new creative teams to somewhat (if not radically) reimagine them! Sometimes the result is better, but in more recent times, often it is worse!
A great example is LOBO, whose… um, “classic series” of 66 issues and scattered annuals and specials ended in 1999, and was revived in 2014 for a short-lived series of 13 issues and one annual!
The problem was that all of the casual-hyper-destructive FUN that made Lobo what he was, was removed from this series (…in typical modern DC fashion). Yes, Keith Giffen and Alan Grant actually took this repulsive and violent character and made him FUN!
And that’s why Lobo remains a favorite of mine to this day!
This new version was somber and angst ridden, along with being repulsive and violent, and that just didn’t work, hence the very short run!
So, Squirrel Girl WILL be back in one form or another… I just hope it’s an enjoyable one!
Hi, Joe --
Not sure whether you'll see this note, since your post is a couple of months old, but I wanted to say a quick "thanks" for the kind words about Scooby Team-Up -- and for your various other SDTU reviews that I've stumbled across from time to time over the past few years. As I'm sure you know, one of the biggest challenges of writing all-ages stuff is simply getting people to know it exists, so I appreciate your spreading the word.
Naturally, all of us on the Scooby Team-Up team are pretty bummed about the series ending, but it's hard to complain about 50 issues and six years -- especially since it was originally supposed to be just a one-shot. Considering that SDTU gave me the chance to write some childhood favorites whom I NEVER thought I'd get to play with (El Kabong? The Great Gazoo? Penelope Pitstop???), and indulge my fanboy fantasies with everything from parodies of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing to Angel and the Ape and the Inferior Five, it's been a whole lot of fun. And it's a tribute to editor supreme Kristy Quinn (plus Brittany Holzherr and a handful of others at DC and Warner Bros.) that they so rarely said "no" to even my goofiest ideas.
At least if we have to go out, our final issue is going out with a bang. Considering your deep knowledge and abiding love of Hanna-Barbera, I think you'll enjoy the sheer amount of stuff we managed to cram into the Crisis of Infinite Scoobies. It's even drawn by Scott Jeralds, who not only drew many of our H-B team-ups, but also worked on the original character designs for A Pup Named Scooby-Doo 'way back when. (And, yes, I've already apologized to Scott -- repeatedly -- for some of the ridiculously overcrowded panels I made him draw. But they're amazing.)
Anyway, thanks for coming along for the ride, and bringing other people along too.
Oh, BTW, I don't know where you're based, but if you're in the NY/NJ area, I'll be celebrating being cancelled (no, actually we'll be celebrating 50 years of Scooby and 80 years of Batman) next Wednesday, 9/25, with a SDTU signing at A & S Comics in Teaneck, NJ. If you're in the area, feel free to stop by and say hi. If you're not, I won't take it personally. :)
Sholly Fisch
Sholly:
So glad to hear from you! One reason I engage Comment Moderation is so that I can address anyone who leaves a comment on an older post. (Another is so that uninvited messages from spammers who presume I’m lonely, or need some sort of augmentation, don’t befoul this humble, but tastefully conducted, blog – but that’s a different story entirely!)
I need not tell you how much I’ve enjoyed your run on SDTU, and hope that you continue to regularly contribute “ten-pages-per-issue” to the main Scooby-Doo title… unless that’s being cancelled too! I’m also proud to have spread the word on what has been my single favorite comic book of the last few years! I know I’ve created some additional readers, because they’ve told me so! Sometimes, all you need to do is SHOW folks how good something can be and they’ll become followers.
If # 50 weren’t the last issue, I would say I’m “really looking forward to it”… aw, heck… I *AM* looking forward to it, and all the more so given your description, and that Scott Jeralds is drawing it!
I’m actually on the other side of NYC, on Long Island. Assuming the day remains free, I can’t think of a better way to toast the end of a great comic book, than by meeting its author! Send me some directions, or I can look them up online.
Also, as I think we might have things to talk about both professionally and as fans, and especially if I don’t get to Teaneck, the way I establish contact outside the blog is to suggest that you send a comment to the blog with your e-mail address. I WILL NOT PUBLISH THAT COMMENT! But I will respond privately. If you’re up for that, you have my invitation.
Thank you for lots of great stuff!
I wish the new "Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?" show would take a page from the Team-Up comics and have the gang meet more Hanna-Barbera characters. So far we've got the Funky Phantom showing up in one episode and that's it.
Oh, wait, Magilla Gorilla also appeared in one episode... as a normal gorilla who didn't talk.
Michael:
When I first heard of “Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?", I had hoped it would be exactly that – the animated version of SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP!
I’d even gone as far as to speculate that the reason SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP was canceled was to simply rebrand it as the ancillary “Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?" comic book title – similarly to the way 1997’s DC SCOOBY-DOO title was relaunched in 2010 as the present-day SCOOBY-DOO WHERE ARE YOU? title – with no noticeable shift in content (...except a LOT of reprints)!
But, NOOOO… There’s no accounting for the strange things DC is doing these days, both with their comics, and the distribution of them.
Nevertheless, I have yet so see “Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?", and probably won’t until a season-set DVD is released, so I can watch it at my leisure and on the big-screen TV I do that with a lot of things!
I’m guessing that it’s at least analogous to the wonderful BATMAN THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD animated series, with a bit of the “old-school” NEW SCOOBY-DOO MOVIES as its base. If so, I’ll enjoy it regardless – that is, if the characters are not horribly distorted image-wise as they were in BE COOL SCOOBY-DOO!
Though, yes… why not more classic Hanna-Barbera characters? SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP showed us all just how well that would work! Do they at least use some DC Comics characters, as did SDTU? I always felt cheated out of the team-up with LOBO! They could have used the version from SUPERMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES, and it would have been perfect!
The Funky Phantom *did* appear in SCOOBY-DOO MYSTERY INCORPORATED, so there is a precedent for that.
…And perhaps the “Fairy Godmother” who once sent Magilla Gorilla back to the jungle to live like a normal gorilla finally completed the job by silencing his “civilized speech”!
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