Welcome to another edition of Family Comic Friday. This week’s edition is for those of you who love mystery mixed with a scare or two. First we look at DC’s latest issue of Scooby-Doo! Where Are You? Then we’ll continue our look at the 2018 Free Comic Book Day offerings with a preview of Howard Lovecraft: Big Book of Summer Fun, based on the trilogy of graphic novels from Arcana Studios.

So let’s get started first with my review of

Scooby-Doo! Where are You? #92

Writers: Ivan Cohen, Scott Peterson, Frank Strom

Artists: Tim Levins, Dan Davis, Scott Neely

Cover by: Walter Carzon, Horacio Ottolini

Published by DC Comics

Not a hoax! Not a dream! Not an imaginary story!

When a collection of prized masks are stolen at a mystery lover’s convention, the Mystery Inc. gang are on the hunt! But as themselves, the detectives are swamped by their fans. So, the team decides to pull a switcheroo and go cosplaying as each other!

Daphne goes as Velma! Shaggy wears the ascot as only Fred can! And Scooby goes as himself!

The cover along is what sold me on this issue. They say not to judge a book by it’s cover. They- whom ever they are could not be any more wrong! Featuring a blast from the classic Scooby-Doo past, this was a fun story to start out the book.

The issue had 3 stories total. The middle tale was a play on Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven with Shaggy being terrorized by a mouthy bird! The beginning and ending narrator which was Shaggy as a cupid didn’t make sense to me as there wasn’t a love interest in this story. But the overall yarn was funny. The final story involves the gang vacationing on a tropical island that is haunted by the ghost of a tribal leader. It was another neat adventure that does a pretty decent job being fresh while classic at the same time.

Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I am a huge fan of the sister title Scooby-Doo Team-Up. I felt it was about time that I highlighted this comic from DC and like I mentioned earlier, the cover really helped me with my selection this week.

The mystery in both of the bookend stories were easy to solve and not dumbed down. It’s great that DC frames the stories this way as to engage readers. The clues are there- you just have to look for them. The Raven parody didn’t have a mystery to solve but it did give me some laughs.

The team at DC does an excellent job with their all-ages books. Unfortunately, I don’t think they get as much love as they deserve. Scoody-Doo! Where Are You? is a fun way to gets a few chills without being scared. Though some of the monsters represented in this series can be a little scary for those under the age of 6.

Scooby-Doo! Where Are You? #92 debuted in stores and digital platforms on April 11, 2018 and is published monthly.

Howard Lovecraft Big Book of Summer Fun FCBD 2018 #1

Published by Arcana Studio

Date: May 5th, 2018

SRP: FREE

Rated: All Ages

Howard Lovecraft stars in an all-new adventure with the events leading up to the animated feature film Howard Lovecraft & The Kingdom of Madness starring Christopher Plummer, Mark Hamill, and Jeffrey Combs. The book also includes a new story from The Steam Engines of Oz that lead up to the events before the animated feature film starring Ron Perlman, William Shatner, and Juliane Hough! And, being a big book of summer fun, there’s also games, puzzles, contests, augmented reality, and animation tips from the pros!