These Books Made Me: Favorite Scooby-Doo Adventures

Man, I loved Scooby and the gang.

Still do, really.

Scooby-Doo was massively influential on most kids of the 70s and 80s, and I was no exception. The original series (Scooby-Doo, Where are You?) was filled with gorgeous backgrounds and fantastically creepy character design, making it a gateway to other tales of ghosts and ghouls.

I was hooked on Scooby as soon as I saw the show, and my mom fed my Scooby-mania the same way she always did: with books.

We had a few Scooby-related books, but the one that I read the most was Favorite Scooby-Doo Adventures. This oversized book was a collection of short stories, with a number of different writers and illustrators.

And that blew my tiny little mind.

All of the stories are fun, and they touched on some of my other early favorites, like prehistoric animals and the headless horseman.

But the thing that pushes it from being a beloved collection of stories to a book that shaped me as a person and a storyteller was that it was an anthology. The collection of styles was one of the first times I realized that multiple artists could interpret the same characters in multiple ways. (The other thing that opened my eyes to this were the Tolkien wall calendars.)

In addition, the range of art styles challenged me — I had a very distinct mental image of Mystery Incorporated, and seeing them represented in a different art style was a little confusing and, if I’m being honest, scary.

But that same disquiet is also what drew me back to the book, even as a very small kid. The original show had safe scares that drew me in, and Favorite Scooby-Doo Stories was scary in a meta way. It pushed my earliest concepts of narrative, and got me thinking about how different storytellers could approach the same material.

Plus, you know, it had ghosts.

These Books Made Me: "The Han Solo Adventures"

As a kid, I loved everything Star Wars. The characters, the drama...  Those movies planted seeds for the expanded adventures I had with Han, Luke, & Leia wherever my stubby little legs could carry me and my Darth vader helmet full of Kenner action figures. 

But just as much as I loved the movies, I loved the books. That's right, the books.

"Han Solo at Star's End" and its sequels ("Han Solo's Revenge" and "Han Solo and the Lost Legacy") blew my little kiddie mind.

First released in 1979, they were windows into full adventures just like the ones that I'd had with toys, but fully fleshed out, and introducing a full cast of characters beyond the ones I'd grown to love through the films.

The trilogy covers Han & Chewie's adventures before the films began. It'll probably come as no surprise that they're depicted as smugglers with hearts of gold. They may complain along the way, but when push comes to shove, they always set aside their own interests to help out those less fortunate than them. 

I can't objectively say how well these books are written, as I haven't revisited since childhood. But I can say this: as a kid, they were friggin' magical. I read and re-read them, bringing them along on family vacations and into all my favorite secret reading spots tucked away in the backyard, where I felt I was in a world of my own.

Today, I cite these books as the reason I have a goal of some day writing tie-in fiction. As a kid thrilling along to Han and Chewie's adventures, the author's name didn't mean anything to me -- I had no idea who this "Brian Daley" guys was -- but I did know that he had the coolest job ever.

The chance to play in someone else's sandbox is pretty irresistable. To dive into the thoughts and feelings of your favorite characters, to tell new stories that explore deeper questions... and then to share them with other fans? That's like having the best action figures ever.

And I wasn't the only one who felt that way. Brian Daley's Han Solo novels were embraced by the later Star Wars writers, leaving a thumbprint on the wider "expanded universe" of novels, comics, and short stories. Later books made mention of the events in this trilogy, and their influence has trickled down to the current batch of films and stories. 

Not too bad for a few books about a smuggler and a wookie up to no good.