Joe Slobadnik said: What I don’t understand is why you say that you and your friend Rob should be the sole arbiters?

It was a joke, Joe.

First off, regarding the appearances of Frank and Joe Hardy, one of the things we’re trying to do in our series of graphic novels is to merge the style of American comics with the very successful style of Japanese comics, or as it’s known today, manga. Why? While most modern American super-hero artists can come up with dynamic layouts and designs, they also tend to horribly distort and exaggerate their characters to the point where heroes such as Superman or Batman look like they’ve taken way too much steroids– and the action is way over-the-top. Japanese artists, while full of their own stylistic distortions, such as big eyes and tiny mouths, are better at creating more naturalistic characters amid realistic settings. We’re trying to take the best of both styles and create something new and exciting, and appealing for today’s young audience. Having Frank and Joe appear exactly as they did on the covers of their books from the 1930s just didn’t seem like the way to go. I will concede that we do struggle with getting Frank and Joe to look just right. Our very talented artist has gotten a bit carried away with Frank and Joe’s hairstyles, getting a little too manga-ish on them, but I understand what he’s trying to do. Look at the best-selling Naruto graphic novels and you’ll see he’s simply trying to make the boys appear a little hipper.

As for the boys’ personalities, well, consider this. They’ve been on so many adventures together that they’re beginning to get on each other’s nerves! They even know they’re treating each other badly, but sometimes emotions make us act in strange ways. This part of the story really is the lead-in to the next graphic novel entitled “Break-Up!” I can’t wait to find out what you’ll think of that one, Mr. Ott!

Daniel Kraus: Chet is still their ol’ chum, but he hasn’t been turned into chum… yet!

David Pitt: Our adventures of the Hardy Boys, like every preceding incarnation of the Hardy Boys, is set in the time period of when the book is originally published, therefore featuring a zombie crawl (an activity very popular around Halloween) makes sense. And as Bill Ott so casually revealed, without any Spoiler Warnings, there aren’t any “real” zombies in the book. I hope that makes things a bit less… unseemly.

Pete: Or what about Tim Considine as Frank Hardy and Tommy Kirk as Joe Hardy from the Hardy Boys serial that ran on the Mickey Mouse Club in the 50s?

F. Elaine Maxwell: Gee, I appreciate that you’re considering the early Hardy Boys novels “classics” and “literature,” even if you hated them as a child, but how are we altering them? The Hardy Boys were created to be an ongoing series of adventure books for boys, and that continues to this very day. We’re just featuring the teen sleuths in comics form, just as they had been adapted several times into TV series (including an animated Saturday morning show). We’re, in our own way, being as faithful to the spirit of the Hardy Boys as possible, while continuing to present them to a new generation of readers. (The “original” books have been systematically revised and updated for decades, by the way.)

Joe Slobadnik: I can’t speak for Bill Ott, but it’s fun to be the sole arbiter of how Frank and Joe should look. : )

Thanks for the review, Mr. Ott!

I hated the Bobbsey Twins and the Hardy Boys as a child but I have left them alone and created my own mysteries. This also applied to to other books.