Writing Scooby Is Easier Than Drawing Scooby

I just got back from the dentist and I should be hitting the board inking Scooby final art but I decided to post this pic instead. It was taken back in late February (around the 21st I think) at around 6:30pm. It had a spooky feel with the lighting which is always great when writing Scooby-Doo. Actually, mysteries are always written better when the light are low. I didn't have any music though. I need silence when I do the dialogue.

I sold three story ideas to DC Comics for Scooby and Warner Bros approved them all. So I was tasked to write the first one, which took me a week. Actually, if I just cranked it out instead of taking time to step away to do art, it would have been like three days. It took a full day in my mind of where it went and how it ended. The next two days were working out the panel to panel storytelling and typing it into a script format and then adding the dialogue, which went fast. Actually this one fell into place quite quickly and practically wrote itself and a nice tag at the end that fell into place at the last moment.

I submitted the final script and heard back a week later that it was approved by WB with no changes! Yowza! I guess after 14 years of drawing Scooby, they knew I probably could write it as well. It was a shock when the editor asked if I wanted to draw the story I turned in too. "Really?", I asked. So when it was said to be OK, I said yes. Originally, with DC Comics, you couldn't write and draw your own stories unless you were incorporated as a business. Apparently things have changed in the last few years with the move to California for DC as you now just needed permission from both parties to do it (DC and WB). I know most people think one owns the other and they're really just one company but they aren't. They are working together more now than ever to milk the intellectual properties that DC owns. With Marvel and Disney riding hard off of every success they have, you can see why DC moved from New York to Burbank to be closer to Warner Bros.

Anyway, I'm quite happy with how my story turned out and I have to say that writing it was way easier than drawing it. When I started drawing it, I knew the exact visuals I wanted as I worked it all out in the writing and planning, but when I got to a page with nine panels I fumed, "who's the asshole who wrote nine panels a page???"

Oh... that's right. It was me.

I've said for years that it's easier to write this stuff than draw it. A scene that takes place down by the docks on the seedy side of town with the mist coming in, a ship's horn going off, with a solitary light above a dockside storefront that was lit is a cool scene to see in your mind's eye. Drawing it though is another thing entirely! There's a million ways to interpret the visual.

Writing the Mystery Machine in the middle of a chase scene is exciting, but drawing the Mystery Machine itself over the course of three pages and a lot of panels can be a pain in the ass.

Anyway, in the end, it turned out cool and I was pleased with how it turned out. I'm hoping the coloring turned out ok as well, as the cover I drew for the comic turned out very nice indeed.

I turned in the final art which was approved with no changes the beginning of May and it should be out in August, as it got pushed back a month (due to a comic convention-style story that was squeezed in last minute).