Hardy Boys Digests Redux!

After two years of no posts, I’m going to be updating http://hardyboysdigests.blogspot.com on Thursdays. Expect the same sort of recapping and comparisons to the original canon that I’ve done before; the only difference is that I’m going to be including Casefiles this time, and the digests I write about will (for a while at least) be from the late ‘80s / early ‘90s. I already have a couple in the can, and the first — The Shadow Killers, #92 — will be posted in one week.

But for those who can’t wait, here’s a little something to whet the appetite:

There are two things wrong with this cover:

1. The tagline. “Play with fire, and you’re sure to find danger in a flash!” There’s nothing wrong with the “Play with fire” intro — a bit clichéd, but that’s how you do these things — but the second part is all wrong. It needs to be slightly witty and a lot shorter. “Play with fire, and watch the explosions!” is slightly better, although not much. “Play with fire, and watch the sparks!” is a great deal better, since the book deals with solar power (power / electricity / sparks). If you’re married to having “in a flash” in the tagline — and if you are, I wouldn’t let it get out, or Fox News will feature your “untraditional marriage” for the next umpteen news cycles — then maybe “Play with fire, and you’ll be burned in a flash!” would work better.

2. Everything else. My goodness. What’s your favorite part? Is it middle-aged Frank running along in the background, t-shirt neatly tucked into his pants? Joe looking slightly like Bill from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure? Or Joe’s loafers? The fact that Joe appears to be trying to run away from a beam of light? Or that if he just hit the ground and rolled under the panels he would be safe? Perhaps it’s the solar panels being pointed toward each other rather than all of them being pointed toward the sun. Joe’s glowing hand? Or is he a saint, dropped in from a medieval painting?

My wife and I came up with a dozen of these when I first showed it to her; I’ve forgotten some of them. But my favorite is a perspective problem. The ground is clearly sloping toward the viewer, but look at how high up Joe is. What is that boy’s vertical leap — eight feet? Ten? I’m sure someone with better geometry skills than I have could figure it out.