Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Big Lie

Welcome back to Waiting on the Trade, a monthly comics book club for people who don’t have time for monthly comics!

In this episode, guest host Jonathan Gurney introduces us to the shockingly wild world of packaged young adult fiction, as we discuss Anthony Del Col, Werther Dell’Edera, and co.’s Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Big Lie.

This episode’s explanations, observations, and links of note include:

• We mentioned it in the show, but it’s worth restating: We are an anti-Comicsgate podcast. If I see Dynamite Entertainment continuing to court the Comicsgate crowd, we won’t be discussing anymore of their books. However, as far as I know, none of the creators involved with this book are pro-Comicsgate, either. Pat and Jono’s point about whether you can separate a creator from their work and its publisher is incredibly relevant, and worth thinking about.
• For more on the rise of the “packaged books” model Jono talks about, check out this The Atlantic article.
• If you want to check out some of the Hardy Boys books Jono mentions in the episode, here is The Sign of the Crooked Arrow and here is an explainer about the BUCKWILD Dead on Target, the first book in The Hardy Boys Case Files.
• Another fascinating The Atlantic article, this one dealing with the missing-from-this-book Chet Morton and the racist content in some of the early Hardy books.
• Here’s that Polygon article about The Death of Nancy Drew, the much-ballyhooed follow-up to The Big Lie (which hopefully will fill in some of the gaps we found here).
• According to PCWorld, the first mobile phone with GPS arrived in 1999. So it is entirely possible that Collig had a GPS-enabled phone.
• And finally, just because they’re great, here’s one of Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant strips having fun with old Nancy Drew covers.

Follow-Up Recommendations

If you liked Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Big Lie, we think you might also like:

• Knives Out.
• Friday. (If you need convincing, I reviewed the first issue here.)
• A Study in Emerald.

If you enjoyed Jono’s time on the podcast and want to let him know, you can find him on Instagram.

New to the show? Waiting on the Trade is a monthly comics podcast, run by two gents who don’t have time for monthly comics. If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email us at [email protected].

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