Although not the namesake character of the animated series, Shaggy is arguably its central protagonist. As in the artwork under examination, it is his activities and emotions that are the focus of the Scooby Doo fables. His values and fears inform the central thesis of the cartoon: Life is a terror-filled adventure wherein perceived monsters are discovered to be reflections of the dark souls of ordinary men.

Shaggy is a youth frozen in an era extinct before he was created; a lame, sanitized caricature of a 1960's dopehead American adolescent, a reefer-addled Maynard G Krebbs at 12 frames per second. With his smoke-rasped voice, his skewed metabolism, and paranoia-saturated demeanor, the influence of THC on his character is evident, and indeed influences the mania that fuels the action of the stories.

The scene in question is typical evidence. Shaggy, with his canine doppelganger in accompaniment, is startled into frantic action by the halting approach of a perceived menace. The "danger" is pure hallucination: a weaponless, lumbering, linen-hindered assailant is hardly a threat to an active youth with a hale dog. Shaggy's fear is the universal dread of any self-aware mortal, made hyper-certain by his marijuana-enhanced imagination. Norville Rogers, our beloved Shaggy, confronts Death's cold eye every 22 minutes of his existence, and comprehends intimately the great eternal dark to which that eye bears witness.

Scooby Doo is Norville's ego in hound form. Ostensibly the main character of a show bearing its name, with more on-air time than any of the human characters, Scooby serves instead as the comic-relief sidekick. The peril of the unnatural terrors faced by the show's victims are made palatable by the dog's eye-popping, ultra-cartoon reactions. Scooby's standard role is evident in the work under scrutiny. Faithfully trailing his master, any anxiety he may have of their predicament is belied by his crossed eyes and agape, almost joyful grin.

It's Scooby's doggish nature that gives him a serenity that Shaggy can only envy. Despite a modicum of awareness - manifested by an ability for comprehendible human speech - he is a soulless creature, with eternal life denied him. Instead of despair, however, this realization frees the dog from the plaguing doubts of its human compatriots. With the Gates of Heaven forever shut to it, Scooby need not ponder their existence, and can instead enjoy this life - its joys and despairs, its terrors and tranquility - without pondering meaning beyond the moment. If only Shaggy could be consoled by Scooby's certainty.

The mummy is a ridiculous adversary. Literally mindless (its brains removed - via nasal extraction - along with its other internal organs, at its internment long millennia before), it lacks the wit, speed, or agility that would make it a significant threat to any but the incurably lame. Lacking visage of any sort, it can't inspire the fear that its more grotesque compatriots can provoke. How and why, then, can it cause Shaggy to take such frenetic flight?

Shaggy's lameness comes not from weakness of limb, but instead the less tangible but immediately evident condition of his mind. Addled by pharmaceutical abuse and insufficient exercise, Norville Rogers' brain betrays him into believing that the shambling, plodding, dragging Egyptian corpse holds palpable danger to him, despite all apparent contrary evidence.

And it does. The mummy represents Death, the relentless, unwavering stalker of all mortals. Its inevitable approach - steady as a funeral march, slow as a yogi's breath, sure as the dusk - grips Shaggy in a way its wrapped hands can not. Rogers does well to attempt escape, although just as certainly his desperation is futile.

The shack is Shaggy's Paradise Refused. A tiny structure perplexedly plopped amidst the desolate woods, it serves to taunt Shaggy with a offer of protection, only to deny him solace because of its jammed door. Resembling nothing so much as a generic cartoon clubhouse, the shack could serve as opium den for the youth, a place for respite from mortal fears, an alcazar where he could torch up and allow his cartoon terrors to drift away in a cloud of acrid pot smoke. Not to be. The door is closed tight to him, and no degree of frenetic tugging will allow him egress from danger. So too is the door of perception - a passage to cognition beyond his mundane understanding - closed to him. Even enhanced by transformative medications, Shaggy lacks the sense, skill, or strength to venture into any nirvana beyond the entanglements of his mortal existence.

Ironically, the shack could also serve as a tomb. Barely larger than a coffin, it's obvious to any sensible observer that it would be the worse place possible from which to attempt escape from the approaching mummy. Once inside, Shaggy would lack the mobility that allows him to elude his stalker, and his capture - impossible in the open woods - would be inevitable. In this perspective, his desperation acquires a new poignancy. Could it be that instead of fleeing from Death, Shaggy is frantic to embrace his inevitable fate, and what seems to be an absurd tactic of survival is actually a shrewd maneuver to gain the bliss of the eternal dark?

The background trees and grass offer unsubtle evidence of the tableau's topsy-turvy setting. Superficially a Halloween scene, the woods lack indication of the season. The absence of leaves on the ground argues against autumn. Since we can't see their upper limbs, we can't tell if the trees are bare, sprouting, or fully-leafed, so we need clues beyond the timber to identify the scene's true season. And there it is, on the ground. Rich and unwithered grass - I'll avoid the obvious marijuana analogies - indicates spring, the season seemingly contrary to the action of the foreground. It's enough to force reexamination of the façade.

If the drama is set in spring - Easter's time - it's no great leap to see the "mummy" beyond its veil of surface presumption. The wrappings could be a shroud, enfolding not a deceased Egyptian noble but instead one more radiantly regal than the greatest of the Pharaohs, walking among men again after three day's internment. And offered as counterpoint to the Resurrection of the background is Norville Rogers, a modern prophet, an offering on the altar of pop culture. With his only disciple in joyous attendance, Shaggy offers himself as reluctant cartoon sacrifice for our comical transgressions.

And so finally the confusion of emotions and contradictions of action are made lucent. Shaggy's promise is the same as his predecessor by two millennia, revealed in altered but recognizable form. The story is told again, made palatable for youngsters in the form of a simple coloring-book image.

The Angelic Specter of Death is added by the collage artist to reinforce the morbid imagery evident in the tableau. She hovers above and behind the passion players as mute, omniscient witness to the unfolding drama, "coloring" the vista as no waxy marker could manage. Alive with metaphor, the striking visage draws a gray curtain over a melodrama as old as civilization, and we are left to ponder the grim fate of the cast, lest it mirror our own.