During a family vacation, the Lawrence brothers joked about starting a detective agency.
A guest at where they were vacationing had misplaced a valuable piece of jewelry while at the beach, Joey Lawrence tells TODAY.com. As the investigation continued, he, along with brothers Matt and Andrew Lawrence, began creating fictional storylines about finding the “lost treasure.” In one scenario, Matt even got a bad sunburn, before shedding his skin to reveal that he was the villain of the story. The ideas kept coming.
So after years of “fooling around with the idea,” the trio finally decided to team up with the Berkowitz Brothers, Ben and Max Berkowitz,Sean Von Gorman and Z2 to bring “The Lawrence Brothers Detective Agency,” an original graphic novel series, to life.
“The Lawrence Brothers Detective Agency” can best be described as a series about “three brothers whose knack for getting into trouble is only matched by their talent for solving mysteries,” Andy tells TODAY.com. “Every case brings clues, chaos, nostalgia, and the kind of brotherly love that only us Lawrence brothers can deliver.”
The siblings have a long history of collaborating on screen, starting with their 1995 sitcom “Brotherly Love,” along with “Horse Sense,” “Jumping Ship,” “Mistletoe Mixup” and more.
A graphic novel, on the other hand, is something new and creative for the trio.
“We’ve been throwing around this idea for years. We wanted to do sort of a grown up ‘Scooby-Doo’ meets ‘Hardy Boys’ and it just kind of came together,” Joey says. “We threw in some ‘90s nostalgia because it’s all the craze.”
Inspired by the Scooby Gang, in the first graphic novel they included nods to the franchise by including a mystery van and other “hidden Mickeys” that would make millennials nostalgic.
The first installment, out now, is the detective agency’s origin story.
“We love the fact that you can really take a lot of chances in this type of format, and that’s what we always loved about comic books and animated series,” Matt says.
Because they “know each other so well,” Andy says, their decadeslong working relationship just flows. Matt adds that when it comes to getting creative, they all come at it from very different angles.
“The sum of the three parts is always going to be better than us individually, in my opinion,” he says.
Calling this graphic novel among their most “unique” projects together, they first hoped to create an animated series.
“An adult ‘Scooby-Doo,’” Joey says, adding that they would “edge up the rating” for an older audience. “I feel like you could have so much fun with that.”
They aim to expand the universe with additional cases and, yes, one day create an animated series or perhaps a live-action show.
For now, Matt says, “Every novel that we put out would be a different case that we would take on. So at the end of this one, not to give too much away, we kind of say: We’re open for business.”
