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🚨 Hardy Boys Casefiles (tm) Poll Time 🚨
As we exit Ladies' Month, this time we're featuring covers featuring ladies. Vote with the matching reaction
🗡️ #13 - The Borgia Dagger
♟️ #43 - Strategic Moves
🏜️ #49 - Dirty Deeds
🚨 Hardy Boys Casefiles (tm) Poll Time 🚨
As we exit Ladies' Month, this time we're featuring covers featuring ladies. Vote with the matching reaction
🗡️ #13 - The Borgia Dagger
♟️ #43 - Strategic Moves
🏜️ #49 - Dirty Deeds
Just some supreme Joe in these
I'm going for Borgia, because I want to see how early some of this madness got established.
Look at this beautiful picture of Joe shitting himself
Glorious
I guarantee it was there from the start
This made it a difficult choice. Chose the dagger because I've never seen a woman cling to Frank
I like the car picture
So🏜️
This week it's back to the boys: The Hardy Boys. An ancient curse has caused Tessa Carpenter to mistakenly ask two high school boys to be her bodyguards. How many stabbings will Joe survive? Will Callie Shaw be jealous of Frank's new admirer or will his sexlessness ease her woes? How much has Joe currently soiled his pants? We will answer these questions and more this Friday, 5pm eastern, with The Hardy Boys Casefiles (tm) #13: The Borgia Dagger.
@Brockway pin this, or else you will have this face
I wish, look at that jawline.
It's really baffling that those two are brothers
Have we considered Frank is doing a Make A Wish thing for Joe and Joe's just too stupid to die?
The fact that the artist doesn't even attempt to make them look related is a choice
Fun fact, the dagger in the picture isn't even the Borgia dagger
I don't know if that's true but it feels truthy
Fun fact: those two circular hoops near the base represent testicles
Also probably not true, but an unread book is full of possibilities
Well, it's too bad for Jole(?), but here is your preview for The Hardy Boys Casefiles (tm) #13: The Borgia Dagger. Starting on the next hour
Four months is a pretty generous amount of time for a curse
It's mine now, Raj Mani
It's a much lazier Ring
The dagger will get around to it, eventually
But now it just wants a nap
"One point three fiscal quarterrrrrs!"
the phone rings and a sinister voice says "eventually"
"On the To-Do List"
That Joe is just wonderful
"Maybe, if we don't move, the murderer won't see us"
<shines flashlight>
We begin with Frank overreacting to poison ivy
Callie Mk 4, based on the book number
Frank's nervous because Callie 3 exploded after touching poison ivy
Callie Mk 4 is one of those blessed souls who have never touched poison ivy.
She would later die after eating a manchineel apple.
Just then: SHAKESPEARE ATTACK
Thank you for mansplaining the most famous line from Hamlet, Frank
Shakespeare Suicide is the name of my next album
And a production of Shakespeare in the Park is ruined
Okay, so... Callie Mk 4 did not get through high school English.
Two things kids love: Hamlet and Suicidal Old Men
And Frank is JUST IN TIME.
He's the hero we need AND deserve.
"WHO COULD POSSIBLY HAVE BEEN DRAWN BY MY LOUD AND DECLARATIVE SUICIDE RANT?"
Oh, you're a really GEEKY girl? You like Shakespeare? Prove it, fake fan; what scene and act are the suicide soliloquy in Hamlet?
Welcome to Frank Ruins A Play, @Gentleman Brendan !
Or stops a lunatic
But I'm still betting on play
Frank proceeds to save the old man by destroying the bridge and sending the old man into the drink
That's our Frank
It was necessary to destroy the old man in order to save him.
--Evangelicals
I kid, I kid.
--Vietnam vets
Frank went to Vietnam. He did not come back as he left.
Dammit, Brendan.
"Save me!" cried the old man as he swung his knife around haphazardly
Sorry, buddy. That's not the line.
I always thought the reason Callie was with Frank was because she had a fetish for danger.
Turns out she may just be kind of dumb.
Better luck with Callie Mk. 5, Frank!
Hot
Dude's a total amateur, dropping character just cuz he's drowning
That's rude. Look, you're a crazy old man trying to commit suicide on a rickety bridge.
You tell me you can do better than Frank.
I don't think you can.
Very surprising that the high school students aren't familiar with the old Shakespearean actor
Of course, the real reason Frank knows resuscitation and can perform it expertly without timing is because every couple of days Joe does something that gets himself knocked unconscious.
Chet would recognize Tyrone Grant
No, wait
Sausage
Chet would recognize sausage
Famous ladies' men are film editors
If your career was doing well enough to be known to a high school... I want to say quarterback... and Bayport's dumbest female mammal, you wouldn't be trying to kill yourself, Tyrone.
Let's not pretend.
Looks like someone got cut out of the marriage
Frank was a quarterback, right?
Frank is a robot that knows karate
Right, a quarterback.
Grant seems pleasant
Dude, you asked them to help you.
What, were you only going to commit suicide by dagger?
AWFUL PICKY.
Frank is a huge nerd
Callie must be used to having middle aged men sob in her car
Okay, so according to wiki the original Hardy Boys Frank was a high school quarterback and captain of the football team.
That's OG
This is 90's, dawg
It was 70 years before this was written
I've dated enough drama majors to know this is an accurate depiction
Roger that.
Not as much
Thirty miles an hour? In a school zone?
oh damn, Callie's going HAM
CALLIE, NO! REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED TO CALLIE MK. 1!
Hardy Boys avoiding danger nested
YES
Go, Callie!
Somewhere, Joe knows his brother is at risk of losing his very life.
And he feels an intense jealousy.
He thinks "..."
I think it's very nice of you to call what Joe does thinking.
Check the redhead box
"I don't want to kill us, Mr. Grant. But my hands are tied."
Tight jumpsuit, you say?
Frank never remembers a face.
A female body in a tight jumpsuit, though?
Not even the ones he keeps
That he'd know in the dark.
Riverdale crossover!
The redhead's mobile phone is broken in a very specific way
Having a car phone in 1990 was a VERY B.D. Wong.
It's funny because it never actually worked, she's just trying to get more money from the Hardy family.
Plot Static was common in that era
Personality magazine
Look, Miss... Tessa, is it? You're the one who drove your expensive convertible into Riverdale. Did you not see the signs?
You're just lucky it was Frank Hardy and not Joe Hardy.
Traits magazine would later demolish the competition
Now they're driving her to the museum. For some reason. The old dude's going too
Good save, Tessa. Frank is actually remembering your centerfold interview in 'Body' Magazine.
This is the prologue where we get each party member's little intro skit
Wait, is Frank driving now? Wasn't Callie driving?
I'm sure Personality is very into the art world
Because when you own a museum, you can just take stuff
Did Frank suddenly realize that Callie had begun to experience clone degeneration and could not drive?
Probably didn't want to drive after the accident
Or that, I guess.
The irony of Frank reading Personality
Why won't you let us keep your paintings in our flammable museum!?
This is an insane afternoon even by the hardiest standards
Albert thinks he has some pull with Tessa just because she lets him smell her feet
Okay, so... Frank has to think he's dead, right?
He's dead, and this is what his hell looks like.
This is ONE hour of their lives!
Ruppenthal is having a real one
It's nice that Grant's suicide attempt is being treated with the gravity it deserves
It's a weird madcap series of events that make no sense and got in the way of him having a makeout session with his girlfriend in the woods, AND there's an antsy pretty rich girl being a bitch who took over their afternoon, AND a suicidal actor.
...and now that.
And Frank can't even throw Joe into the mix as a distraction and escape out the back.
Then come back in and pretend he was helping.
Workmen are all on a hair-trigger, it seems
He fell asleep under a blanket
It's a museum rumble
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT
Workmen vs. Museum archivists, let's see some betting action.
Joe is just feeling weirder and weirder.
First there was that sense he was missing out on a near death experience.
And now he has this urge to throw a punch and he doesn't know why.
Joe can't use a payphone. Frank got him that Fisher Price one to keep him occupied.
At the end of the series, Frank fiinds out Joe blew up Callie.
Frank, are you wearing Joe's underwear by mistake?
"She was trying to come between us, brother."
Here comes the Hardy Mobile.
Is Joe trying to use a computer somewhere, increasingly baffled and frustrated?
Officer Riley, the most exasperated cop in fiction
Joe instantly after the new blood
Woman...threat?
Now, this ogling is impressive, because of what happens next
explosion?
Grant has impressive speed
Holy shit!
Grant has to kill someone, and if it's not himself it's someone else
It's okay, Tessa. Just call yourself Ophelia and he'll leave you alone.
A Cop Named Con: A Hardyverse Expanded World Mystery
Grant has been tormented by this child apparently
Okay, I did not see that coming.
What a roundabout way of describing a strangling.
I should have.
But I didn't.
I legitimately let myself think these two strangers were entirely unconnected despite them both appearing in the first pages of a hardy boys book.
I think the appropriate response to this is seppuku.
Grant is giving negging a try
How badly can an 18-year-old, even a rich one, ruin an old man's life?
she can't wreck his marriage
He has no career and no assets.
Well...you ever see The Wizard?
Dude, you're a 70 year old retired actor and she's an 18 year old rich girl. If you're allowing your life to be made worse by her, the problem is on you.
Riley is very excited to meet this washed up attempted murderer
Oh, Riley.
You are a one.
Grant's a biter
Joe is going to turn into another Grant when the moon is full
I feel like Joe should be used to violence being directed at him just for turning up.
This book is all over the damn place
Mr. Squinder. At last, we meet.
So he's not a famous Shakespearean actor?
Coming this Fall: Thespian Butler and the Rich Heir
I'm so confused.
This is only book 13! How is it going off the rails this quickly?
I expected this to happen at some point, but not this early in the book.
This is a long walk to "rich family dealing with cursed dagger"
Unless suicidal thespian butler is a trope I haven't noticed before?
He's a Shakespearean theater actor that took a butler gig, but is still famous enough to warrant cameo appearances in horror movies
Treating Grant just peachy for a man who strangles almost-children.
I couldn't imagine something more straightforward
Oh shit, this is inverted Batman.
As confused as I am, it's comforting to know that Joe never had any of this explained to him and probably never will.
Cassie is having a great day
Callie, this is your chance to escape.
I strongly recommend you take it.
"I raised her from a tot! She wouldn't even be strangulable if it were not for I, the theatris dramaturge GRANT!"
How often does Alfred attempt suicide?
I, too, like to throw parties to celebrate package deliveries. It makes them feel appreciated.
Grant's on a bi-monthly schedule
Every time he tells Batman he can't do something.
This idiot strangles her every few months?!
What I'm getting from this is Frank should have ignored him.
And just gone forward to his date with Callie.
Grant: the only person to be blacklisted by the suicide hotline
Joe could have waited for his brother to explain this mixup, but his boner wouldn't let him
It's not going to be a thing between them now, but years in the future Callie will hit him with a frying pan and they will both know why.
Is this the same Callie as in the other books or do these guys only date Callies?
I swear they use that name every other book
It's the same Callie if you count clones
Joe. No. I know you can't control yourself, but no.
Well it's Frank's girlfriend the entire time, so that would make sense
But, Wombat. REDHEAD
Joe is the one with the vaporized girlfriend
Who was then quasi-cloned
Ah yeah that scans
oh right
This isn't like object permanence or self-preservation. Joe, you need to not get involved with...
How many teens have drowned trying to save his little cries for attention?
Three.
Smooth operator
Shark is right, of course.
Yeah.
Redhead trumps everything.
Art party at a mansion, or...hear me out, this new movie called THE BURBS just arrived at the cineplex
Frank has the biggest fight bearing down on him and no idea how ill-equipped he is
Callie is having the weirdest day.
Callie should have married her true love: Chet
Frank may actually escape just because she can't process any of this.
Oh, Joe, you always know just the right things to say to remind me how I hate you
In the 1930s continuum, did Joe sound like he was from the 1870s?
"Joe, it smells like an ox died in there. Will you please FLUSH"
Sick headline
Religious and military leaders are never murderers, of course
Chet might not be blandly handsome but there's something to be said for sausage pizza on a tuesday instead of kidnappings at brunch
Okay, so. First, there is no way Joe pronounces Borgia correctly.
BOY DETECTIVE THROWS DEADLY PERSONALITY MAGAZINE!
Frank, don't inflict violence on your brother.
Frank narrowly dodges Personality!
Frank knows he's about to get a dry handsky in the back of the theatre tonight so he's pumped
I mean, Joe!
It's what he wants.
Classic castle porch
Bayport, America's castle city.
Frank moves to stop Joe from breaking covenant: they agreed they would show no personality.
The portcullis is wreathed in solicitors and salesmen. As a warning.
Eighteen, huh
I'm pretty sure Frank also looks like he stepped out of a movie.
Good ol' Harley "Glass Teeth" Welles
Great joke, Dr Realname
People who have savoir-faire at 18 are scary.
Like we get it, you're dating your Columbia professor after she said you ought to be the one teaching this class.
The siren song of snacks
Joe, you're here for the redhead. Please focus.
I totally believe the person with access to the prescription pad is Tessa's best friend.
This is my kind of party.
I think this book is fucking with me
No, those were a popular thing at the time.
Glass cases aren't the coolest things ever?
News to me.
If this was a movie, it would look like the costume department just used whatever they could find
'80s hair bands wore them and then the natural brown leather ones took over the trend.
At fancy evening gown parties? Worn by Muffys
Muffy though
Buffy
and
Barbie
Anyway, Ruppenthal is trying to start a fancy rumble
Why he's here is a mystery
"I say, Muffy. That young rapscallion has been eying the hors d'ouvres for nigh on an hour. Has he never eaten something on a table?"
Nothing like a cursed artifact to get a party going
This is how humans talk
So Muffy and Rumstiltskin are now marked for death?
I assume he's there to be the murder victim.
Tessa then picks her teeth with it, just to twist his nads
Deadly hors d'oeuvres
I hope the lights come on and Ruppenthal is strangling her
Then, the disco lights
Man, I hope there's a dead body.
You have to own it AND touch it AND piss off Grant
Instead the statue died
NOT THE STATUE!
I mean it's from Hannibal's time, I'd cry too.
They turn around to see the buffet table empty and Joe comatose on the floor
Yeah, no notes.
Wait, "edged with concern"?
That's it?
Gather round children, and read about the adventures of the Hardy Boys!
Albert is just an actual human being who somehow wandered into the orbit of Tessa, and now it's intersected with the Hardies.
Poor Albert. Run while you can
So... That's how they cover the actual stories about the Borgia family.
It's all he can muster when there are so many food distractions in the room
Kids love systematic murder of the downtrodden
Not a bad tactic.
I have to admit I was kind of hoping they'd cover Lucrezia and Cesare.
Statue's busted. Perfect time for a story.
Hey,why are the children crying?
Making up a whole new Borgia whose only crime is murder is a good evasive maneuver.
What.
Look, you have a better way to store bodies, I'd like to hear it