2016 re-releases of Original series!

[tomswift2002]

I just picked up #2 today.  The others haven't shipped yet.  The cover was done by a Matthew Taylor.  But aside from the cover, the internal illustrations are still the 1959 illustrations, and the book even features an ad at the back for #'s 10-14 of the Undercover Brothers from 10 years ago.  And the list for the G&D books list to #66 for the Hardy's and #64 for Nancy Drew.  Also on the back are a couple of sentences from the book, like the current hardcover Adventure series.

[MacGyver]

Nice- thanks for the information. I will have to look out for these next time I get to the bookstore.

[Hardy Sleuth]

Oh, very cool, tomswift2002! I'd like to get that one!

[tomswift2002]

I just got an email from Coles saying that the other 3 books have arrived, so I'll have to get them soon.  Unfortunately, in my area, Coles hasn't been stocking the Hardy Boys on the shelf, either the Adventure stories or even The Tower Treasure/The House On The Cliff in about 2 years.  Hopefully these new covers will get the series back on store shelves.

[tomswift2002]

Just picked up #'s 1, 3 & 4.  #1 was drawn by Brian Edward Miller, #3 is by Jonathan Bartlett and #4 is by Ryan Brinkeroff.  Otherwise, the interior pages in Tower contain series lists for both the Hardy's and Nancy that include the 2005 Wanderer reprints, while both Old Mill and Chums contain those lists plus the ad for Undercover Brothers 10-14, as well as the Nancy Drew computer game "Last Train To Blue Moon Canyon".  Plus the internals are still the 1950's/60's pictures.  So why the cover art is not uniform is explained, and I wonder if G&D are waiting for stocks of the other books covers to get low before commissioning new artwork.

[MacGyver]

So why the cover art is not uniform is explained, and I wonder if G&D are waiting for stocks of the other books covers to get low before commissioning new artwork.

That could be. And I'm sure they want to see how well these four sell before commissioning any others.

[tomswift2002]

Considering it is just new covers, and not new stories, I don't see them really needing to wait.  Considering that the first 58 Hardy Boys books are classics, and these covers are the first "new" updates that G&D has done since the 60's, I can see them wanting to redo all 58 plus the DH to improve sales.  Considering that these books are using pages that look to have been bound 10 years ago, I'd say that sales have been down, and a new cover is an easy way to create new marketing for the books. 

Plus it follows a pattern with G&D and the Hardy Boys.  If you look at the first 38 you saw their first covers (aside from The Tower Treasure) get a new cover about 15-25 years after the book first came out.  And considering that most of the cover art for the Revised Texts has been out since 1959-1973 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 all got new covers between January 1959 and December 1960 and the last revised cover was #38 in 1973, otherwise the majority of covers for the revised texts were done before December 1969).  So for the books with new cover art done in the 59-60 range, the updates, had the hostility between the Stratmeyer Syndicate and G&D not wound up in court we probably would've seen new covers in the 1974-1985 time period and again in the 1989-2010 period.  1974 was the 70th anniversary of the Bobbsey Twins series, and it was because G&D didn't do anything about it to celebrate that started the lead up to the court case 5 years later, so the Syndicate may not have pushed at the time, plus just coming off the last new cover in 73, they may've felt that they could wait a few more years before pushing for new art.  However the court case came and the court basically put a hold on everything by saying that G&D could reprint the books as they were for however long they wanted to and any changes would have to be agreed upon by both parties.   So G&D has been reusing those 56 year old covers (and in the case of The Sting of the Scorpion, that cover is now 37 years old, and both with it and The Firebird Rocket, it looks like Rudy Nappi was trying to make the Hardy's resemble Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy), and now the first four have got new covers using the art style and clothing styles of the 2010's, rather than the 1950's. 

Just the other day I was asking at my local Coles whether they might start carrying the books again, and the sales person was kind of hopeful that they would, since apparently the sales were down in my area, and the Chapters head office decided that if people wanted any Hardy Boys at my local store they would be available on the Kiosk/website only.  But I also have to think, how many times do you see a new cover for a classic tale, like Robinson Crusoe or a new edition of The Mark of Zorro/The Curse of Capistrana by the original publisher or a new publisher. 

So I think we can probably expect to see new covers over the next few years, plus for both G&D and S&S if the covers increase sales, then that means more money in both their hands.  But I don't think we'll see them go 5, 6, 7; it'll probably be as the inventory of book covers gets low, then they'll create new books.  So we may see covers for #'s 20, 23, 38, 45 and 58 before 12, 13, and 14 get covers, depending on how the books sell (plus in the past G&D has had instances where their stock of interior pages was used before all the covers were, as occurred in 1961 with The Hidden Harbor Mystery and why the Picture Cover version of #14 didn't hit store shelves, with the new cover art, till 1968, even though it was planned to be one of the first PC versions in the first place.  G&D had extra stock of the DJ cover from 1950).

[SkyWarp]

I have the first in the series now, and noticed that the cover artwork actually wraps the entire book (minus the spine), and perhaps the house on the back is suppose to the "tower"?    Do the other three books artwork wrap the entire book as well? 

[MacGyver]

Oh, really? That's pretty cool! I don't know about the other books, but thanks for the heads-up on this one.

[tomswift2002]

Yeah the other three do wrap around the book.  But the logo's kind of remind me of the opening graphics for each case in the 2011 game L.A. Noire.

[SDLagent]

SDLagent, hi, haven't seen you here for a long time! How've you been? Just wondering the other day when you were ever going to drop by here. I keep you, and everyone @ Mr. Pizza, in my prayers.

I'm doing good, thanks! how about you?

You think the blue hardcovers are ugly?  I think they're cool looking. Maybe it's the flashlight part of it you don't like? I thought you liked the cover art itself.

Exactly. I dislike the blue flashlight border/header thing that they pasted over top of the original cover art.

Hey SDLagent- nice to see you posting here again.
I appreciate that, Hardy Sleuth- I pray for people on here too.
The artwork itself for those books are iconic to me. I like them just fine- but I can see how it might be time for an update. And the new covers are pretty neat in concept- I don't like the execution for most of them though. (Except The Secret of the Old Mill- that one came out really well I think.)

Thanks, Mac.

[tomswift2002]

I just saw that my local Wal-Mart is carrying all 4 of the new G&D books (about5 copies of each).  And, boy, on the shelf the covers really pop next to the other books.  The funny thing was, in comparison, the new Hardy Boys Adventure cover The Madman of Black Bear Mountain, while it looked nice, it really looked out of place.  None of the other covers even came close.  The Adventure cover, the best way to describe it was that it looked like a 15th/16th century painting (like the Mona Lisa or a similar era painting) on display in the middle of a cubism/Picasso style art show.  And I tried to visualize the older covers of the 4 G&D books on display on the shelf, and really, next to the  other books, I don't think customers would be attracted to the books.  So I think that we probably will see new covers for the other G&D Hardy Boys books.

[MacGyver]

This may have been mentioned already, but all of the 4 re-releases have different cover artists. So it looks G&D is getting different artist interpretations of The Hardy Boys- which is kinda cool, but sometimes you do have some interesting Picasso-like covers. In any case, it's nice to hear Wal-Mart is selling Hardy Boys books again.

[tomswift2002]

Even though all 4 covers are by different artists, the style goes with the styles of the other books that are out there right now, whereas the older covers and even the Adventure covers go against those styles.

[tomswift2002]

I just got a couple of emails today from Chapters here in Canada that the new versions of Hunting For Hidden Gold, The Secret Of the Caves & The Mystery Of Cabin Island have been shipped to me.  There was nothing on The Shore Road Mystery, so hopefully that will ship in a day or two.