For readers of a certain age and sensibility, Edgar Cantero‘s Meddling Kids will go down as easy as a bowl of sugar-coated cereal on a Saturday morning. In the summer of 1977, a group of Scooby-Doo-esque teen detectives—Andy, Peter, Kerri, Nate, trusty dog Sean—crack their biggest mystery yet, exposing the infamous Sleepy Lake monster for what it really is: a guy in a mask trying to get his hands on the treasures buried beneath old Deboën Mansion. But something doesn’t sit right; thirteen years later, the so-called Blyton Summer Detective Club reforms to put to rest lingering doubts about the case. Lovecraftian horror, pop culture panache, and slapstick set pieces all figure into an animated romp about growing up, letting go, and the inherent dangers of the Necronomicon.
During his recent tour to promote the paperback release of Meddling Kids, Cantero stopped by Boswell Book Company for an “in conversation” event with Milwaukee Record‘s Matt Wild. The two talked the genesis of the book, its “double-nostalgic” time period, how Scooby-Doo would have looked different if the gang had taken on human traffickers, and much more. A huge thanks to Cantero, Boswell’s Daniel Goldin, and everyone who came out for the talk.
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