This year marks the 90th year since Nancy Drew first started showing off her detective skills in The Secret of the Old Clock by Mildred Benson back in 1930. Eighty million books in print later and several adaptations in different media including a current CW TV series, and despite updates and changes to the character, readers keep coming back for more. Partnered with her familiar allies The Hardy Boys, a new series from Dynamite Comics arrives next week, but will it be the last? Get ready for Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew.
We have a cover reveal today for borg readers! Take a look at this great cover by Brett Helquist, artist for A Series of Unfortunate Events and other great covers and picture books. It’s for Elizabeth C. Bunce′s second novel in her Myrtle Hardcastle Mysteries series, How to Get Away with Myrtle. As a result of prioritization by distributors and national shipping companies of food and other staples due to the pandemic crisis response, How to Get Away with Myrtlewill now join the first book in the series, Premeditated Myrtle, to launch together as Fall 2020 releases, debuting October 6 (both are now available for pre-order here at Amazon). “I didn’t think I could love a cover more than Brett’s first for the series, and then… Wow! Here we are with the cover for Book 2 already,” said Elizabeth. “We shared some ideas back and forth through the Algonquin publicity team. I love the complimentary color orange following that purple theme from Book 1. Putting that great locomotive out front sets the stage for this adventure, along with the image of the seaside resort as if it were pulled right off the brochure for the excursion service referenced in the novel. And, of course, Peony the Cat sneaked her way onto the cover again! Now that we have two paintings from Brett, it’s really fun for me to see both covers side by side.”
We have a cover reveal today for borg readers! Take a look at this great cover by Brett Helquist, artist for A Series of Unfortunate Events and other great covers and picture books. It’s for Elizabeth C. Bunce′s next book, Premeditated Myrtle, now available for pre-order here at Amazon.
As readers over the past decade at borg know, one of our frequent contributors of book and TV reviews is author Elizabeth C. Bunce, whose first novel, A Curse Dark as Gold, I feature here every October as a recommended Halloween read. Next up for Elizabeth is Premeditated Myrtle, the first in a new mystery series in the tradition of Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Miss Fisher, Flavia De Luce, and… Quincy, M.E. I, your humbled editor and Elizabeth’s husband, have been watching Elizabeth build her mystery series from the ground up–the second book has been written and the third and fourth mysteries are underway! I know you’re going to love the adventures of intrepid twelve-year-old Myrtle Hardcastle and her equally intrepid cat Peony (who also made the cover if you look closely).
Myrtle has a passion for justice and a Highly Unconventional obsession with criminal science. Armed with her father’s law books and her mum’s microscope, Myrtle studies toxicology, keeps abreast of the latest developments in crime scene analysis, and Observes her neighbors in the quiet village of Swinburne, England, in the year 1893. When her next-door neighbor, a wealthy spinster and eccentric breeder of rare flowers, dies under Mysterious Circumstances, Myrtle seizes her chance. With her unflappable governess, Miss Ada Judson, by her side, Myrtle takes it upon herself to prove Miss Wodehouse was murdered and find the killer, even if nobody else believes her — not even her father, the town prosecutor.
“Covers are always a surprise for the author—seeing how someone else will envision your characters,” said Elizabeth. “My agent leaked the news that Brett Helquist might be working on Premeditated Myrtle, so I had to pretend for months that I didn’t know! I knew his work, of course, but what really sold me were his illustrations for A Christmas Carol. There are no ghosts in my Victorian mystery, but Brett did an amazing job capturing Myrtle’s determined energy—and even more importantly, Peony the cat! We went back and forth on a couple of sketches for hair and clothing, but what never changed was Myrtle’s perfect expression. The scene he chose to illustrate was one of my favorites to write, so it’s been great fun watching it come to life in full color.”
At last a new Nancy Drew television series has arrived, but except for the odd screencap (a quick shot of Nancy Drew and The Hidden Staircase, or Nancy Drew and The Secret in the Old Attic) it has little resemblance to the novels the series is based on. Billed as a brilliant teen detective by the studio, CW’s Nancy Drewpresents a heroine that is anything but, if the rest of the series is anything like the pilot episode. If you like disinterested young adults begrudgingly solving crimes that would be solved quicker by reasonably motivated teenage kids with half a brain, then this is your show. This is not the smart, driven hero detective beloved by generations of readers.
The pilot reveals yet another series-long mystery set-up, instead of a mystery-of-the-week a la The X-Files. Coincidentally the pilot introduces the same kind of body-in-a-box mystery as the far more engrossing new series, Fox’s Prodigal Son (but compelling writing and acting is pulling me back for more of that series). It even shares the same story of a split family and parents somehow conspiring (or not) over a corpse in a trunk, while tricking the younger version of the series lead that it was all a dream. Nancy Drew unfortunately also shares a lead character much like the brooding under-achiever in this year’s new AMC mystery series NOS4A2, a series that handled strange mystery and a confused young woman protagonist more believably.
Nancy Drew is played by 23-year-old Kennedy McCann. Sometimes a series will cast young adults for teenage roles and make it work, but McCann just doesn’t look like a high schooler (nor do her friends). Nancy’s boyfriend is played by Tunji Fasim, and her key circle includes diner (think Twin Peaks, Riverdale, etc.) co-workers played by Maddison Jaizani, Leah Lewis, and Alex Saxon, with Nancy’s dad played by Scott Wolf, and his lover/city detective played by Alvina August. The mystery begins with Nancy and her co-workers present as the last to see a local socialite alive–Nancy finds her dead in the diner parking lot, and everyone is hauled downtown to get interrogated. The backdrop shuffled in is some local lore about a teenager who committed suicide by diving off a local cliff years ago, and Nancy coming to terms with her father after her mother recently died.
Tomorrow two classic franchises will take the form of comic book series as Dynamite Entertainment releases the first issues of Charmed and Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys: The Big Lie.
Inspired by recent noir comic book series like Ed Brubaker’s Fatale and Darwyn Cooke’s Parker series, Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys: The Big Lie writer Anthony Del Col (Assassin’s Creed, Kill Shakespeare) and artist Werther Dell’Edera (Detective Comics, House of Mystery) are bringing the classic teen detectives into the 21st century. Yet it has a very Archie Comics vibe. In the new series, Frank and Joe Hardy are accused of murdering their father, a detective, and they enlist Nancy Drew to help prove their innocence–and find the real murderer. The series promises a “twisting, hard-boiled tale, complete with double-crosses, deceit and dames,” keeping with the noir crime setting. Look for cover variants Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys: The Big Lie from Faye Dalton, Emma Vieceli, and Robert Hack.
Before the series Supernatural would take over the genre spot for the next decade, the three Halliwell sisters, Prue (Shannen Doherty), Piper (Holly Marie Combs) and Phoebe (Alyssa Milano) provided a similar weekly fix of the paranormal, the mythic, the magical, and the Wiccan. Following the death of Prue in the finale of Season 3, their long-lost half sister Paige Matthews (Rose McGowan) assumed Prue’s role within the “Power of Three,” and a new comic book series will continue the story of these three sisters. The second longest running hour-long television series featuring all female leads, Charmed aired 178 episodes over eight seasons. The next episodes will take the form of a Charmed monthly comic featuring writer Erica Schultz (Swords of Sorrow) and artist Maria Sanapo (Grimm, DC Comics Bombshells). Artist Joe Corroney (Star Wars, Star Trek) will provide the cover art to Issue #1, and Sanapo will draw the monthly covers and interior artwork.
Check out previews of Issue #1 of both new series, including variant covers, after the break, courtesy of Dynamite Entertainment:
The next noir crime drama may come as a surprise: It’s Dynamite Entertainment’s new throwback series Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. Inspired by recent noir comic book series like Ed Brubaker’s Fatale and Darwyn Cooke’s Parker series, writer Anthony Del Col (Assassin’s Creed, Kill Shakespeare) and artist Werther Dell’Edera (Detective Comics, House of Mystery) are bringing the classic books and 1970s team-up television series into the 21st century. It looks to have the vibe of CW’s new Riverdale television series update to Archie Comics, including that show’s Twin Peaks aura.
The Hardy Boys stories and Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series were first published in 1927 and 1930 respectively and continued for 75 years. Created by Edward Stratemeyer, but ghost written by Mildred Wirt Benson and hundreds of writers over the decades, the books followed teenaged brother sleuths, Frank and Joe Hardy, and a young heroine detective, Nancy Drew, whose strong character has been cited as a personal influence by Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Sonia Sotomayor, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In the new series, Frank and Joe Hardy are accused of murdering their father, a detective, and they enlist Nancy Drew to help prove their innocence–and find the real murderer. The series promises a “twisting, hard-boiled tale, complete with double-crosses, deceit and dames,” keeping with the noir crime setting.
In the latest ads for CW’s new teen series Riverdale, the live-action series looks even more like an updated Twin Peaks than in the initial teaser trailer. CW’s television adaptation of the 75-year-old Archie Comics characters and hometown is only weeks away. More and more we’re thinking the series has the look and feel of the Archie Comics’ recent successful expanded universe in its Afterlife with Archie and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina series. Let’s face it–if the new television series really were to look like the monthly comic book, which has run relatively unchanged for its 75-year span, it would basically be a remake of Happy Days.
However CW’s Riverdale turns out, our fingers remain crossed that we’ll see the infamous Sabrina drop in as a guest star or that the writers will find a way to incorporate at least a good Halloween episode. Zombies, anyone? Another classic franchise family, Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys, are getting their own update next year when Dynamite Comics releases a new monthly series adaptation with a noir, true crime twist: Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys: The Big Lie. The common theme seems to be bringing back the classics, but trying to spin them in a way to make them appeal to current audiences, which is nothing really new as adaptations go.
The first full-length trailer and a second teaser for Riverdale were both released this week. Every classic property should get the CW teen soap opera treatment like Riverdale and Smallville and all the great DC Comics series currently running. The shows may not be entirely loyal to the source materials, but you can bank on some interesting characters and well-told stories ahead.
Check out this first extended trailer for Riverdale:
