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).

SCOTT INNES - "CARTOONS & COUNTRY MUSIC" Book Cover!

This weekend I sit and finish up writing Scott Innes' new book and putting the final touches on it. It's called Cartoons & Country Music - My Life in the Shadow of a Dog! It's slated for the printer and I have to get it out of here by today or Monday. It's been completely updated from the last one version that was released in 2002 and this will be the only book that he does again for a long time so I'm trying to get it right. Older chapters had stuff added to them and there are a bunch of new chapters added, such as a chapter on me and our working relationship with Hal & Al and other of Scott's PR stuff that I've done. There's also a new chapter about Hal & Al, which is quite good. Hal & Al will have their own book at some point since it seems to be getting bigger and bigger. This book will also have a LOT of photos in it, and that was where most of my time yesterday was focused on getting them in order and labeled correctly. Here's the cover art for the book. Eagle-eyed fans of mine will see that this cover is similar to the Scooby-Doo "Earth Day" comic cover I did in April 2008.

Some will ask why does Scott even have a book? Is it a vanity project? It is that, but the original book came into play because he kept getting asked how he got the job of voicing Scooby-Doo back between 1997-2002 for the movies. He got so tired of being asked it, and telling a shortened version of it, that he thought he'd write a book about it where it explained it all in depth. It's a good chapter of the book. Hanging out with him when I travel down south for Hal & Al stuff, people do still ask him how he got the part, so now he'll have this new book to promote. He has met a LOT of famous celebrities and done some cool stuff so it's a fun read. Kids would also enjoy it since it will also be in a bigger font and like a 'young adult novel' melded with a scrapbook.

Scott's still doing the voices of Scooby and Shaggy (Shaggy even more now) and has been for since 1997 for licensed products and such as the new Scooby-Doo Interactive DVD Game that came out late last year where he did Shaggy's voice. Hopefully he'll be doing the DVD movies again soon!

This new book should be out by early March and available online at his website, which is located at http://www.scottinnes.com/!