There's an elephant in the room that I've not spoken about lately. The fact that the Looney Tunes and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? comic books from DC Comics seemingly disappeared without much fanfare.I first learned about it live on the Scooby Addicts podcast in my interview with hosts Nikki and Wendy... and I was initially shocked by the news. There are rumblings on forums (there always are) but I
can't say that I'm totally surprised by it either. I have worked off-and-on these books over the past 20 years (mostly on Scooby though).
These beloved characters are in a weird zone right now (I am including Tom & Jerry in this mess as well). This is not something that just happened overnight. It's been a slow crawl to limbo.
When I learned that there was no new Scooby comic scheduled to come out, my first thought was that it was getting cancelled so that they could restart fresh with a new #1 issue.
I remember when they did this the last time and I expressed my dismay to my editor at the time about DC doing it. He commiserated with me, but what can you do? I've always hated disrupting the numbering system of a comic series just to get a "fresh start." I don't mind long runs of books but the industry has been doing this crap for ten years now. Amazing Spider-Man is incredibly hard to follow in terms of what to read and in what order. I can see a new reader saying the hell with it.
The first notion that something was amiss was when DC cancelled the Scooby-Doo comic in 2009-10 and then moved it to DC's imprint called Wildstorm who would then produce it. That was flat out weird! It seemed like they were finally ready to dismiss it and push it off to the side and say, "Yes, we produce this... but we don't like to talk about it."
Now this makes me laugh... as it was a deep, dark secret that in terms of actual press runs, Scooby-Doo was the biggest press run that DC had each month. Even over Batman and Superman, Scooby-Doo reigned. This is fact. I learned that from several of my editors over the years. DC never liked to acknowledged that publicly though. From 2015 to now, I don't know what the press run numbers were. A lot of things changed after the pandemic.
As they were winding down the previous comic series titled Scooby-Doo, they were already working on the new monthly series titled Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?. I think there was a month or two off before the new series started up and I wasn't informed about it until the first one was pretty much ready to launch. In fact, I was working on a comic for one of the final issues of Scooby-Doo when the editor finally told me about the new series. They had the first two issues already done in the can to get a jump start on it. I started working on the new series with issue #5. Scott Peterson was the new editor, and things continued along just fine.
Somewhere during the run, they stopped producing two new 10-page comic stories for each issue. It then became the standard to do just one new comic and then reprint an old one to fill the second spot. Both Looney Tunes and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? started doing this around the same time. I don't fault them for this as I understand the economics of it, but it was now less work for the creative talent who produced the stuff.
Some years later, they stopped publishing monthly and went to a bi-monthly schedule for both series. As a creative, this was not good news as it meant less work. They rotated each issue's art team so everyone would get some work. I like that they did that, but we were now down to only 6 issues per year instead of 12.
Then we got the Scooby-Doo Team-Up comics... like throwing baloney at the wall to see what would stick, they teamed Scooby up with anyone and everyone whether it made sense or not! Scooby-Doo and Batman made the most sense and would please a lot of fans. They should have done it years before, but they weren't allowed to. Don't ask. All this fun lasted several years, but even those got played out. The Scooby-Doo/Batman comics ended last year. At least, it kept the creative talent working though.
Looney Tunes disappeared in late fall of '24, and then in early 2025, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? mysteriously fell off the schedule. Since they were both bi-monthly books, people didn't notice right away. However, when eagle-eyed fans didn't see any new Scooby comic solicitations for the month of April, people started putting two and two together.
The mystery continues...
Right now, the only thing DC has coming out for Scooby-Doo is the complete series omnibus for Scooby Apocalypse. It comes out in September.
Currently, there are NO new publishing plans for Scooby-Doo material anywhere. I mean anywhere. I was initially told this by WB in 2019 (I've still got the email) and I've inquired at several places recently, and it's still in the same limbo.
Did Scooby-Doo fall out of favor with kids? I don't know that either.
Kids don't read monthly comics and they prefer graphic novel formats. That's if they even read to begin with... which is another matter. The Scooby/Looney Tunes comic readers I've met were mostly older readers who grew up with it.
Well, we still have the animated stuff! Oh, wait...
Yep, it wasn't good news when they stopped production of the Direct-to-DVD movies for both Scooby-Doo and Tom & Jerry a few years ago. They had been reliable mainstays and were great as a branding tool in keeping the characters in the public eye. Sadly, most of the people I knew who worked on them are still looking for new work as the animation industry sits spinning in turmoil.
Currently, the pulling of content from the streaming services is also concerning... It makes you wonder what is going on? It certainly makes you happy if you bought it all on DVD and still have them! Physical media may be making a comeback!
My line of thinking at this point is that the suits at WB, or the head person I won't name, doesn't seem to care much about this material in general. I would think it's a license to print money, but what do I know. It's gotten to the point where I could honestly see WB selling off both Scooby-Doo and Looney Tunes outright to some other studio.
In terms of comics, could Dynamite Comics get the Scooby or Looney Tunes licenses? It would make sense that they would get first dibs as they are the only ones doing some Hanna-Barbera related stuff currently. I don't see anyone else picking it up... and don't get me started on the non-existent page rates that artists are getting either, which is another whole post I could do!
One more point I'd like to make, as a creative, is this: Could DC have possibly cancelled the comics due to the horrendous approval times that may be involved these days? I've been complaining about this for the past year and how it's bad everywhere. Even working months out ahead of schedule, I wonder if DC's editors ran into approvals that just sat in limbo at WB? I don't know, but it never used to be like this. This is the main concern I have for all aspects of this industry and freelancers right now!
Any thoughts, or if someone else hears something, let me know!
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