Scooby-Doo...Where Are You! - Gold Key - Issue 1 - Comic

Scooby-Doo...Where Are You! - Gold Key - Issue 1

Released March 1970

Episode Premieres

What a Night for a Knight - Season 1, Episode 1 - September 13, 1969

Never Ape An Ape Man - Season 1, Episode 7 - October 25, 1969

Thoughts

The comics were developed separately from the television series but with many of the same scripts. Scooby, Shaggy, Velma and Daphne have the same appearances aside from off model drawings but often details will diverge from the cartoon like the pink Mystery Machine.

Scooby's dialogue is replaced with thought bubbles. It gives it a Garfield vibe. The convention was likely borrowed from Hot Dog in Archie comics.

Stories

What A Night For a Knight

This is an adaptation of the first episode for the cartoon show, What a Night for a Knight. The gang investigates a suit of armor that comes to life in the moonlight and searches for a missing professor. 

The design of the missing professor diverges from the show. The professor in the comic has a cowboy hat and a generic look. The professor in the episode is wearing a safari outfit with a more distinct appearance.

The plot is simplified to remove a few detours and remove some of Shaggy, Velma and Scooby wandering around while the knight stalks them. Velma doesn't give Shaggy medicine. Scooby doesn't knock down a dinosaur skeleton. Daphne and Fred find the trail of paint on their own. Shaggy never sees a missing painting. 

After the gang find the forgery studio in the comic, the story wraps up quickly. Scooby trips the knight and they unmask him. The entire plane sequence is dropped. The shorter space of the comic doesn't harm this story in any way. It's not worse for the absences and it's not significantly different. It's just simpler.

Never Ape an Apeman

This is an adaptation of Never Ape an Apeman. The gang investigates an ape disrupting Daphne's uncle's film production.

In general, the comic looks different than the episode. This is different from some contemporary tie-in comics like the Mickey Mouse comics for the modern Mickey Mouse shorts that initially ran from 2013 to 2019 and were followed by a recent revival. Those comic look like screenshots from the cartoon shorts. 

These comics weren't made in isolation. They do follow the same script. But they aren't the same.

The name of the film company in the cartoon is Epi-Center Film Company. In the comic, the film company is Starbright Films. 

Candy Mint looks more like Betty Page in the comic than she does in the cartoon. I actually prefer the comic but that's mostly because she's wearing brown slippers in the cartoon and I don't think it suits the costume.

The Groucho mirror gag is dropped. A fair change because it wouldn't work as well in a comic. The wine cask tunnel is dropped as well. Shaggy never photographs the Apeman because he's trapped shortly after their first trap fails.

The story ends with the director announcing he's going to make them the stars of the film.

Rogue's Gallery

The Black Knight and The Apeman