Given that the last time I read a Hardy Boys book, I was probably 10, I didn't expect to be reading new stories in my 5o's and still really liking them. Del Col has definitely turned the series on its ear with the kids are all grown up now even though they are still in their teens. Joe and Frank's dad has been murdered and they are the prime suspects. So Nancy and the boys go undercover to find the real murderer. The end of the book also hints at bigger conspiracies to come. Del Col definitely steers the story into the crime noir genre. Dell'edera provides art that looks like an extension of one of those pulp covers from the 1940's or 50's.

Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys - Graphic novel collection of six singles, ‘The Big Lie’ follows the trend of taking wholesome juvenile characters and drag them into a darker shadow. We saw this with archie and others, all well done. I believe that Anthony Del Col, Werther Dell’Edera , and Dynamite comics have produced another great schism in the trend.

The Big Lie tracks the Hardy Boys as they are interrogated and blamed for the murder of their father. Shortly after, we see Drew has suggested they purposeful enter the limelight in an attempt to flush out evidence. The comic continues down the path as the trio break into a police dept to steal evidence, join forces with drug dealers, and influence scenarios leading to another murder. Drew and the Hardys are officially in legal gray space, operating under the guise that they are beyond the law until the law can be trusted.

The art was amazing, seeming to focus a bit more detail on Nancy while the Boys were left typically in a grimier and more dated artistic interpretation, but it all worked. The comic feels like a modern take on classic 1970’s newspaper comic strip serials.

The book teases more story featuring The Syndicate

'Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Big Lie' by Anthony Del Col with art by Werther Dell'edera is, according to the author, an updated, noir version of these classic detectives.

Frank and Joe Hardy are no slouches at solving crimes, but when their father is found dead and they are accused of the murder, they may be in over their heads. Thankfully, they are friends with Nancy Drew and she has some ideas how to help, if only she can stop the Hardys from fighting each other.

I thought the characters and story were fine. I bristle when "updated" means the characters are borderline criminals. It's like being good is what dated them. They do still feel like the characters I know and the outcome feels like a familiar one, so I can't complain too badly. The art is decent too.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Dynamite Entertainment, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Big LIe. Who does not love a graphic novel? Easy to read like watching a show while reading the book at the same time. I really enjoyed it and as always Nancy always solves the story in the end. Fun read had a bit of a twist and was nice read.

Thank you again

I used to read Nancy Drew when I was younger but this format wasn't for me. It was a bit gritty, too modern, a noir thriller. This graphic novel was a bust for me.

I never actually read the Nancy Drew stories or the Hardy Boys but I still loved this idea. The plot was great fun and the characters were fantastic to read. Great fun!

Being a fan of the Nancy Drew books, I knew that I would love the twist on a classic and especially since it was cool to see Nancy Drew being updated. I love this modern twist and on as well as the Hardy Boys. The story was phenomenal and character were up to standards.

I am currently going through my Shelf to clear out books that I either DNFed or was not able to write a full review for whatever reason. Unfortunately this is the case with this title.
As I had issues with my computer at the time, I was not able to get Adobe Digital Editions working to read this title, and thus was not able to view it. I hope to pick up a physical copy soon as it looked intriguing and a very interesting title.
Thank you for the opportunity to read this book, and I hope to read more in the future.

This is not they Nancy Drew that you grew up with!

Nancy is back, and much more grown up than ever before. She knows that the world is dangerous, not everyone can be trusted, how to manipulate a situation, and how to read a situation. In other words, Nancy was a badass! Seriously, this girl. I would read a book series about her just like this now as an adult. I grew up completely in love with the Nancy Drew mysteries, and this version is a more grown-up Nancy I can get behind. I can't wait for more of her story.

I had never read a Hardy Boys book, but I think I can easily make the assumption that these are the angsty, hardened version of the boys, almost all grown up. I really liked the strained dynamic between the brothers as well as how they battled for Nancy's attention.




This is just the beginning of this messed up, totally noir feeling mystery and I can't wait to see where the book will go next. These characters are capable of so much more than their previous version were, but things are much darker now. The art work fit the plot perfectly, making it dark and noir-ish while still keeping things with a modern feel. Overall, I found this to be a really interesting graphic novel.

** Come visit me at https://smadasbooksmack.blogspot.com/ **

I’m not quite sure how this happened but I made it through my entire childhood without reading a single Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys book. I began to rectify this glaring hole in my bookish experience two years ago when my library bought the first few Nancy Drew books. I read and enjoyed the first two before getting distracted by another book. Here we are two years later and I’ve been distracted by so many other books that I haven read the third book or beyond. I’m yet to read a Hardy Boys book.

I was excited to have the opportunity to read Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Big Lie but when I tried to get into it the first time I was concerned that my lack of inside information about this trio would mean I would be lost before I started. I needn’t have worried. Finally giving up on getting to know Nancy better and the Hardy Boys at all first I dove into this graphic novel today and it was surprisingly awesome!

When I originally met book Nancy she came across to me as fitting a tad too well in the ‘practically perfect in every way’ box but I loved her character in this noir graphic novel. This story shows Nancy, Frank and Joe with an edge that I’m guessing they never had in the novels.

In this story we find ourselves in postcard perfect Bayport. The Hardy Boys are suspects in their father’s murder and together with childhood friend and fellow mystery solver Nancy Drew, they need to find a way to clear their names and identify the real murderer. Along the way there are fist fights, suspicion thrown around some shady and not so shady characters, police brutality, flashbacks, meetings in the middle of the night and a good ol’ fashioned secret passageway left over from the Prohibition era.

I’m not sure how people who grew up loving Nancy, Frank and Joe will fare with what appears to be a hardening of their characters and a less innocent bunch of mystery solvers. I enjoyed the grittiness of the investigation and it probably says something about the feel of the graphic novel that in my head the male narrator/voice over had the same voice as Mickey Rourke’s Marv in Sin City.

I loved the front cover image, combining the trio and providing a hint of what’s to come. The illustrations matched the style of the story; dark, murky at times, with plenty of shadows to add to the ambience.

While one part of the mystery is solved in this graphic novel there’s an overarching mystery that remains to be solved another day, and it will definitely be a follow up I’ll be looking out for.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Dynamite Entertainment and Diamond Book Distributors for the opportunity to read this graphic novel.

Maybe Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Big Lie would have resonated for me a bit more if I’d ever read Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys. Instead, I’ve only ever seen their cover illustrations and imagined the sort of squeaky-clean peril they might get themselves into. I think, though, that I still wouldn’t have gotten much from this too-serious gritty reimagining of the classic teen mysteries.

The introduction to The Big Lie admits that it takes inspiration from the revelatory Afterlife With Archie, a series that thrillingly juxtaposes familiar Archie characters with zombie horror to great effect. The problem is that The Big Lie only suffers by comparison.

Where Archie subverts familiar characters and tropes without losing the essence of the originals, The Big Lie tells a dour modern-day noir that slaps Hardy and Drew names on bland, interchangeable characters. It isn’t subversive because there isn’t enough substance there to subvert.

Instead, it confuses a grim, serious tone with maturity, suffers from some serious holes in logic, and hangs it all on a boilerplate storyline about corrupt cops, drug dealers, and unexpected murderers. I didn’t care about or relate to any of the characters, and I also didn’t much like the art.

If I was going to write a modern noir update of the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy mysteries, I think I would ground it in story where they’re all still crime-solving kids, but the mystery has higher stakes. You could still flash-forward and show them as adults, but the core has to be about something that happened when they were kids.

Although I do like the idea of rebooting classic stories from a fresh new angle, I can’t recommend The Big Lie. It misses the mark in so many ways and delivers something both bland and uninteresting.

I loved this modernization and graphic novelization of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Be warned if you are expecting the same old characters. You'll be disappointed. It's a grittier, noir version with a much darker storyline.

Unlike a lot of the reviewers who seem to have requested this volume, I *am* a huge fan of Nancy Drew and the Hardy boys in several of their various 'reinventions' through the years to bring them into the current times.

This one throws a lot of changes into the mix that people who have been long time fans will notice -- some big things like Joe and Frank's father being killed off. Their Mom is alive though. Also there was a big falling out with their families. There are a number of other things, but you'll likely be able to pick them out yourself if you're familiar with them in any iteration, and I don't want to get too far into "spoiler" territory.

I think they went too hard into trying to make it "gritty" and didn't focus enough on set up or characters. I couldn't get a real read on any of them, because they were so caught up in the way the characters were going to talk to one another that it's like a whole other conversation is taking place silently and we're just not privy to it.

Overall, I was pretty heavily disappointed. I guess I still have my ongoing re-read of all the oldies that I've collected/keep finding, but an addict is always on the look out for *more* and I thought that this could be a really nice score.

I am a fan of the Stratemeyer Series books and I did enjoy seeing a lot of them in this book however the story was too dark for my taste and the art was just as dark. I liked that the characters were grown up and interacting with each other but they were not true to character. The mystery itself was good with a nice twist at the end. The main mystery was solved but I did not like the cliff hanger.

As a kid, I was not particularly into either of these series. I am interested in them on an intellectual level. This is a prime example of the increasing darkness, violence, and vital peril of mysteries aimed at a young audience. Much as the show Riverdale did to the innocence of Archie, so does this book do for Drew and Hardy.

Added this miniseries to my 2017 favorite comics list.

As a Graphic Novel this story holds up. It's darker than some of the earlier Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy Mysteries, but overall the story is engaging and promising for young sleuths looking for a more mature mystery to read.

I've never taken the time to read Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys but I have always loved the movies and tv specials. This rendition might have actually gotten me reading the books when I was younger. I love the darkness and the grit of the story - no lost puppies here.
I was sucked in and couldn't put it down. I loved everything about this (okay, I did have some problems keeping Frank and Joe seperate but that did not take away from the story). I can't wait for the next one.

I loved the Hardy Boys growing up, both the books and later, the TV series. Yes, I'm that old, lol. I was less of a Nancy fan but I read and enjoyed some of those books too. Still, when I saw this on NetGalley, I was intrigued. The blurb was a little off-putting with it's talk of noir style but I decided to give it a try.

This story radically revises the Hardy boys mythos - killing off their dad, reviving their late mother, and absolutely no mention of Aunt Gertrude nor is their any mention of any of their friends, Chet, Tony, etc. Additionally, they've been friends with Nancy and her family for years. There are changes to Nancy's mythos as well but not as radical. One nice little touch was the inclusion of other famous teen sleuths such as Tom Swift and the Bobbsey twins.

The story starts shortly after Fenton Hardy was killed. Nancy, Frank, and Joe have teamed up to solve Fenton's murder. Nancy is definitely the brains of the outfit and quite a master manipulator. Frank and Joe have sibling issues and argue, and fist fight, often. Joe is impetuous and Frank is sulky; actually, they both are. Like other teens, they argue, and whine, and got on my nerves. But together they find a killer, crack a drug ring, and discover a conspiracy. They were smart, clever, impulsive, and annoying and made a good team.

If you are a hard-core fan of the original Hardy Boys, or Nancy Drew, you may want to skip this. Not only is it very noir, complete with dark illustrations, but it radically updates Frank, Joe, and Nancy's stories. It's a much more current theme and storyline. The story wandered a bit, or so it seemed at first, before settling into the investigation. I have to say, I didn't always like Frank, Nancy, or Joe but they weren't boring or predictable. The art, as I mentioned, was dark, sometimes blurry, and not as detailed as I like. But the facial illustrations were excellent and added depth to the story. The story found Fenton's killer but left open other threads. Not a great story but a decent, if dark, very dark, update.

I don't believe I have ever read any Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew mysteries prior to this graphic novel. I have vague memories of watching the TV show as a kid in the late '70's but I don't recall much about it. What caught my interest here was a blurb describing The Big Lie as a twisting noir-ish update of the brothers and their gal-pal Nancy... yeah... kinda, sorta, but not really.

I was expecting something like the movie 'Brick" instead what I go was more akin to a weak version of 'Rebel Without a Cause'. It's an overdramatic, teenage angsty kind of thing. Nice kids in a tough situation acting out and pretending to be hard core. The whole thing was pretty stereotypical.

The plot did have some pretty sharp twists and turns (some of which were a little hard to follow) and the book ends in a bit of a cliffhanger set-up for the next issue.

It's not terrible. It just didn't resonate with me... not every book is for every reader.

***Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this title.