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scans_dailyI'd say that this was a "Context is for the weak" post...
but for Frank and Joe Hardy, this sort of (literal) manhandling IS the context...
Alas it's not actually a scene from inside, but WOW! what a cover image!
(I also didn't show the guest appearance in this issue of President Obama, as it just wouldn't have seemed right)
I'm tempted to quote Xander in Buffy, when he meets Vamp Willow in Doppelgangland and she hugs him rather forthrightly "This is verging on naughty touching, here." and "Hands! Hands in new places." but something tells me there are very few area's the Freres Hardy HAVEN'T been seized or grabbed by.
Graphic novels are just the latest place that Frank and Joe Hardy have brought their own brand of teen fraternal action adventure (Going strong in multiple media since 1927!), as well as brotherly bondage.
And they wasted no time on that latter point either (playing to your strengths, eh boys?); This next image is the front cover of issue 2 of 2005's "The Ocean of Osyria" by Scott Lobdell and Lea Hernandez, the first of the Papercutz comics featuring the Hardy Boys (which swiftly became a series of graphic novels instead)
These guys clearly have an unhealthily large amount of experience at this sort of thing as, after they eventually manage to purloin a knife from one of their guards, this is their reaction!
Now that just ain't a normal reaction!
In truth though, they are just continuing their long, long history of such things.
Stretching the concept of scans_daily just a tad, and if the Mods want me to remove the next section, please just ask, but since I did include comic scans I'm hoping for leniency...
When I was about 10 I found this sitting on the local bookshop shelves and realised that this was actually pretty damned cool looking... If I knew then, what I know now.... Look at it! there was dude in distress, bondage, tattooing AND being menaced by pirates (It's "MMMMPH! Like a Pirate Day") all on this one KIDS book cover!
Between this and Dick Grayson, my poor little nascent sensibilities didn't stand a chance!
A trip to the library to investigate further showed that this was far from an isolated incident! I've noticed that Joe tended to get the brunt of things on the UK covers... This is from "The Vanishing Thieves"
Dig the high heels there Joe!
And this one has a nice incipient vertiginous feeling to it.
But sometimes it was about the both of them... and no cover has been interpreted in quite so many fairly naughty ways as THIS one! (The finale of the book as the brothers captured, bound, gagged and left to go kaboom thanks to a time bomb, so it IS hard to resist, though some have tried!)
Golly! How did THEY get in there?!?
Heck, it even made it, very briefly and fuzzily, into the opening title sequence of the 1970's TV series (I would KILL to have been at THAT photo shoot)
...with the fluffy haired antics of Parker Stevenson as Frank and Shaun Cassidy as Joe. This was also confusing to my developing awareness that Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman was impressive but just wasn't appealing to me the way it was to the other guys in my class, whereas I though Joe Hardy was CUTE! (It also didn't help that Shaun Cassidy literally WAS prettier than not only Lynda Carter, but most of Charlies Angel's too)
And even in the 1990's when the books were reissued there was plenty of the good stuff.
This is from the new cover to The Whale Tattoo, also seen above.
And here are a couple of alternate takes on the "Melted Coins" cover
And I still cannot believe they got this cover past the publishers I mean LOOK at it! The best, and if I'm honest, probably ONLY painting of a cleavegag I've ever seen, and you can see the waterline is about a foot above Frank's head, and with the tide coming in things don't look good for them.
There's a brilliant interview with one of the artists here where he mentions the problems they had with the models in these pictures, with "Joe" growing a ponytail and a beergut when he went to University! :)
And I adore the lumberjack here, I mean he's just so.... lumberjack-y! And I won't even speculate as to why Joe has been tied to the post THAT way round, it's as if they wanted to leave that cute little ass in the tight jeans in a handily accessible position or something (Though I don't think slicing his big brother in two is Joe's idea of effective foreplay).
And there is further hope for the future too, as this is the cover of their NEXT graphic novel!
The more things change, eh boys? :)
but for Frank and Joe Hardy, this sort of (literal) manhandling IS the context...
Alas it's not actually a scene from inside, but WOW! what a cover image!
(I also didn't show the guest appearance in this issue of President Obama, as it just wouldn't have seemed right)
I'm tempted to quote Xander in Buffy, when he meets Vamp Willow in Doppelgangland and she hugs him rather forthrightly "This is verging on naughty touching, here." and "Hands! Hands in new places." but something tells me there are very few area's the Freres Hardy HAVEN'T been seized or grabbed by.
Graphic novels are just the latest place that Frank and Joe Hardy have brought their own brand of teen fraternal action adventure (Going strong in multiple media since 1927!), as well as brotherly bondage.
And they wasted no time on that latter point either (playing to your strengths, eh boys?); This next image is the front cover of issue 2 of 2005's "The Ocean of Osyria" by Scott Lobdell and Lea Hernandez, the first of the Papercutz comics featuring the Hardy Boys (which swiftly became a series of graphic novels instead)
These guys clearly have an unhealthily large amount of experience at this sort of thing as, after they eventually manage to purloin a knife from one of their guards, this is their reaction!
Now that just ain't a normal reaction!
In truth though, they are just continuing their long, long history of such things.
Stretching the concept of scans_daily just a tad, and if the Mods want me to remove the next section, please just ask, but since I did include comic scans I'm hoping for leniency...
When I was about 10 I found this sitting on the local bookshop shelves and realised that this was actually pretty damned cool looking... If I knew then, what I know now.... Look at it! there was dude in distress, bondage, tattooing AND being menaced by pirates (It's "MMMMPH! Like a Pirate Day") all on this one KIDS book cover!
Between this and Dick Grayson, my poor little nascent sensibilities didn't stand a chance!
A trip to the library to investigate further showed that this was far from an isolated incident! I've noticed that Joe tended to get the brunt of things on the UK covers... This is from "The Vanishing Thieves"
Dig the high heels there Joe!
And this one has a nice incipient vertiginous feeling to it.
But sometimes it was about the both of them... and no cover has been interpreted in quite so many fairly naughty ways as THIS one! (The finale of the book as the brothers captured, bound, gagged and left to go kaboom thanks to a time bomb, so it IS hard to resist, though some have tried!)
Golly! How did THEY get in there?!?
Heck, it even made it, very briefly and fuzzily, into the opening title sequence of the 1970's TV series (I would KILL to have been at THAT photo shoot)
...with the fluffy haired antics of Parker Stevenson as Frank and Shaun Cassidy as Joe. This was also confusing to my developing awareness that Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman was impressive but just wasn't appealing to me the way it was to the other guys in my class, whereas I though Joe Hardy was CUTE! (It also didn't help that Shaun Cassidy literally WAS prettier than not only Lynda Carter, but most of Charlies Angel's too)
And even in the 1990's when the books were reissued there was plenty of the good stuff.
This is from the new cover to The Whale Tattoo, also seen above.
And here are a couple of alternate takes on the "Melted Coins" cover
And I still cannot believe they got this cover past the publishers I mean LOOK at it! The best, and if I'm honest, probably ONLY painting of a cleavegag I've ever seen, and you can see the waterline is about a foot above Frank's head, and with the tide coming in things don't look good for them.
There's a brilliant interview with one of the artists here where he mentions the problems they had with the models in these pictures, with "Joe" growing a ponytail and a beergut when he went to University! :)
And I adore the lumberjack here, I mean he's just so.... lumberjack-y! And I won't even speculate as to why Joe has been tied to the post THAT way round, it's as if they wanted to leave that cute little ass in the tight jeans in a handily accessible position or something (Though I don't think slicing his big brother in two is Joe's idea of effective foreplay).
And there is further hope for the future too, as this is the cover of their NEXT graphic novel!
The more things change, eh boys? :)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 02:22 pm (UTC)Do you remember if they actually did almost tattoo a tied-up Joe? If it's only on the cover, I will still never get over that being used either in text or in picture form.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 03:57 pm (UTC)Blackbeard there is a mentally disturbed guy who runs a tattoo parlour (That's an idea behind a whole series of teen horror films right there!). When Joe, investigating a case by pretending to be interested in getting a tattoo (in a nice sign of the times, many of the people he goes to see try to discourage him from getting such a thing at such a young age) says the wrong thing and then this happens.
"Well, I'll think it over," said Joe, suspicious now, and becoming anxious that he might not get away unmarked. But Blackboard was not to be put off so easily.
He suddenly leaped up and lunged around the table. He seized Joe by the collar. "Not so fast," he growled menacingly. "You said you wanted to be tattooed, and you're going to be tattooed!"
Joe began to struggle. But Blackboard was strong and powerful.
"I'll tattoo you if it's the last thing I do! I'11 do it for nothing!" He raised his voice, shouting, "Lopez! Come here!"
A door opened. The servant rushed in and flung himself at Joe.
Against the two men the boy was helpless. "Quick!" panted Blackboard. Joe tried to shout, but the pirate's heavy hand was across his mouth, stifling any outcry.
He fought with all his strength, but Lopez produced a length of rope and whipped it around the boy's ankles. In a few minutes he was bound, gagged, and thrust onto a table.
"Get the needle, Lopez!" ordered Black-beard. The servant scuttled into another room.
The pirate, his heavy arms folded, looked at Joe with a satisfied air. Then he reached down and ripped open the boy's shirt.
"Give me the needle, Lopez!" he shouted.
Joe was utterly helpless, yet he struggled grimly against the ropes that bound him.
Lopez stood by, handed Blackboard a long, sharp needle in a holder.
Joe felt a stab of pain as the tattoo artist crouched over him and the needle pricked the skin on his chest.
"You'll get a design you maybe never heard of before," grunted Blackboard. "First, I prick the design. Then comes the dye."
The sharp needle stabbed Joe's skin once more.
I mean, people say Marston wrote Wonder Woman with one hand down his pants... God alone knows what the guy writing this was doing!
no subject
Date: 2009-04-19 08:16 am (UTC)I'm choking on my coffee, here.
Is Joe forever marked? I must know!!!!
WOw. Leslie McFarlane, I mean Mr. Dixon, those are some kinds of um... 'children's books' you were writing...
no subject
Date: 2009-04-19 02:06 pm (UTC)Nah, the police raid the tattoo parlour and find Joe on the table, and Frank on a nearby couch, and Joe is unharmed apart from Blackbeard having pricked out the design on his chest, but hadn't got around to the dye part. Blackbeard and his swarthy assistant escape, though later they do manage to corner the boys again, and then we have this... interesting passage;
He arose, picked up a small carved chest from a table, brought it before his captives, and opened the lid. Frank and Joe got a strong whiff of a sweet, sickening incense.
"Just to make you peaceful," said the pirate, closing the lid.
Fearing they would be overcome by the strange odor, the brothers dodged to the other side of the room. What would this fiend attempt next?
"I have a story to tell you," Blackbeard grinned. "But first you must be in the proper mood. Don't try to get away, my lads."
He followed them, carrying the chest. The boys wondered if they should tackle the two men before they had a chance to execute some dire plan. Frank and Joe realized they might be tattooed with the Curse of the Caribbees, or become the victims of some other awful scheme of these pirates.
"Let's fight 'em!" Joe urged his brother. But neither he nor Frank had the power to do so. Suddenly their muscles seemed to become paralyzed. Slowly they sank to the floor.
Lopez propped the Hardy boys against the wall. They had never felt so queer before in their lives; their minds functioning normally, their bodies useless.
Sorry, I shouldn't snicker, considering the age this was written in, but even so! :) (Oh, and don't worry, they are saved again by the Police, and the effects of the narcotic incense is only temporary... for shame!)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-20 12:12 pm (UTC)But first you must be in the proper mood. ?!?!?!!
What WOULD this fiend attempt next? I hope it's not a dire plan!
I'm not sure he could be more graphic if he was being more graphic, you know? Frankln W. Dixon: absolutely shameless, God bless him.
Good lord!
no subject
Date: 2011-02-18 07:19 am (UTC)not that I read those often, mind you.
OH GOD XD
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 04:16 pm (UTC)It's interesting that the only reason that particularly vivid scene remains in the book in the UK edition is that when many of the stories were rewritten in the 1950's or 60's to update them from their late 1920's original text, the UK never got the rewritten "Melted Coins" text for some weird reason.
Ours is the original text which is great, whereas the rewritten version (Suddenly the plot involves melting down valuable coiss to... ummm make DIFFERENT valuable coins)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-19 08:19 am (UTC)So weird about the... well, I'm fascinated by the mechanics of the writing of this series and Nancy Drew, which I believe had even more of a stable of pulp authors turning them out.
Interesting.
I saw that the Melted Coins was supposedly written by McFarlane based on an outline by a Mrs. Harriet S. Adams.