Scooby Doo Vol 1 #30: Spring-Heeled Jack

This particular comic book finds Scooby and the Mystery, Inc. gang taking on Spring-Heeled Jack, a Victorian Era menace who, though he was never said to have killed anyone, began tormenting London in 1837. It was claimed that he would jump out at women--tearing their clothes with "claws" and sometimes even blowing flames at them. Many stories and legends rose up around this figure which became more bizarre as the years passed, but it's unclear whether there was a real man at the base of these legends or not.

The Scooby comic has Spring-Heeled Jack haunting a museum's Sherlock Holmes gallery--supposedly because he's upset that Holmes gets so much attention and he is getting none. In the course of the gang's investigation into the appearances, Jack knocks Freddy over and after the bang on the head, Freddy takes on the Holmes persona. It's up to the rest of the mystery-solvers to get to the bottom of the mystery and find a way to return Freddy to himself.

Of course, comic books aren't the usual fare here on the Block--but the theme for May in Monthly Motif Challenge was "One Sitting Reads" and comics were given as an option. On one of our periodic visits to an antique mall, I found the Holmes-related Scooby Doo comic while helping my husband search for his favorites. I decided that it needed to come home with us and would be a perfect read for May's Motif. 

The story runs true to the cartoons that I remember from Saturday mornings when I was young (and then again re-watching with my son when he was little). You just know that Spring-Heeled Jack will be one of the people we meet in the museum who will have a secret reason for wanting the gallery to close. And you would be right. Good fun reading.