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Issue # 12       December 1998       Editor: Bob Finnan
  Bayport Beat  


Seasons Greetings!
Welcome to the Bayport Times.


As many of you are no doubt aware, the Bayport Times has a new URL due to facts too numerous and annoying to mention here. And, yes, I know those pop-up windows for Geocities advertisers ARE annoying but that's the price paid for getting this otherwise free web space.
The Bayport Times will now be issued pretty much whenever the mood strikes me (which means not too dang often, dagnabbit!) and when (and IF) I have enough of my own and reader contributed material to make it worth the effort.
If you would like to contribute an article, letter or announce a new Hardy Boys discovery, please send e-mail to: fwdixon@yahoo.com - Please use "Bayport Times" as your subject heading.
HELP WANTED
Yep, I need your help to locate the following books for my personal collection:
2 in 1 editions: #8 Sinister Signpost/Figure In Hiding; #9 Secret Warning/Twisted Claw
Hardy Boys Classic: Treasure Island
Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys Campfire Stories
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
Well, with the Holidays upon us, I guess it's time to take "The Mystery Of Cabin Island" down from the shelf and reread it for the umpteenth time! Hey Frank! Watch out for that iceboat!

See you next time!
 

  Hardy Boys News  
  • New Collectible Discoveries
    16MM film from the animated series - Contains "The Missing Chums"
    More "Digest" original art showed up (but didn't sell on eBay)
  • eBay Auction Results
    53 HARDY BOYS MYSTERIES...70'S - $319.05
    51 OLDER HARDY BOYS SERIES BOOKS - $157.50
    Mystery Of Cabin Island - Rogers DJ - $158.01
    Corgi Hardy Boys Rolls Royce - $157.00
    House On The Cliff - Rogers DJ - $119.50
    Secret Of The Caves - Rogers DJ - $107.49
    Hidden Harbor Mystery - Gretta DJ - $103.50
    Short-Wave Mystery MAROON BOOK! - $103.49
    Great Airport Mystery PC w/$1 BOX - $76.11
    Corgi Hardy Boys Rolls Royce - $76.01
    Sinister Sign Post - Gretta DJ - $76.00
    Hardy Boys Sheet Music (Wheels) - $76.00
    Hardy Boys lunchbox and thermos mint unused - $48.01
    Mystery Of The Chinese Junk - DJ - $31.51
    Other Recent eBay Results
  • New On The Shelves
    Clues Brothers
    The Pumped-Up Pizza Problem (#9)
    Digests
    Danger In The Extreme (#152)
    Eye On Crime (#153)
    Case Files
    3 In 1 Casefiles #2

THIS JUST IN: Harry Tanwick is STILL missing!
 

  How A Boy In The 90's Looks at the Hardys 

By Jake Brownell

    I've read several Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, Hardy Boys, some Dana Girls, and some Bobbsey Twins. I have always liked the Hardy Boys best. I was first introduced to them at eight years of age. I don't know how my mom got the idea to give a Hardy Boys book to me for Christmas but I got "The Tower Treasure". I tried reading the first page. I didn't understand half the words on it. I'd try every couple of months. Then I forgot about it until my cousin told me he was reading them. That gave me courage enough to try reading it again. Yes I could understand the first page! And so I kept reading. I really liked it and started reading more. I am now 12 years old. I didn't know much about them until I started going to our new bookstore which had a huge display of cheap Hardy books.
    I've also read some Digests, Casefiles, Super Mysteries, and Clues Brothers. I have to agree that I have always like the originals best. The digests are pretty good. The Casefiles are tremendously exagerated but some are pretty good stories. The Super Mysteries are slightly exagerated but are otherwise very good stories. The Clues Brothers are really good if you pretend you are a little kid the Hardys' ages. However I have always liked the original texts for their more interesting plots and slower moving stories.
    I have also wondered about the location of Bayport. I had always thought it to south by southeast of New York City. I guess I always thought this because of the trips the boys are always making to the Big Apple and the description of having a harbor.

My favorite stories would have to be:
#8 - The Mystery Of Cabin Island
#2 - The House On the Cliff
#11 - While The Clock Ticked
#6 - The Shore Road Mystery
#1 - The Tower Treasure
#140 - Slam Dunk Sabotage
#91 Shield of Fear

My least favorite stories would have to be:
#5 - Hunting For Hidden Gold
#7 - The Secret Of The Caves
#19 - Nightmare In Angel City (Casefiles)
#81 - The Demon's Den
#59 - Night Of The Werewolf

    I have always liked #8 for its adventure, humor, and all out a good story! #2 is a good one to me because it was one of the first mysteries that the boys had to solve without their detective fathers help. #11 is another wonderfully spooky and good story of how the boys end up solving 2 mysteries in one book. #6 I believe I liked because of the basic plot and how the boys handle the situations. #1 I enjoyed because the boys teach Hurd Applegate a lesson in kindness. In #140 I really liked the cover and how Joe got thrown out of the biggest game of his life. In #91 I like the plot and the ways it was handled by the boys.
    I have always liked Frank Hardy the best and Chet as the boys best friend. I liked the way Aunt Gertrude would come and stay and the boys were on their best behavior. Who do you like best? I'd like to know.

  The Hardy Boys: Why We Love Them In Spite Of The Fact They Drove Leslie McFarlane To Drink  

by Robert C. Neul

    I read Gene Weingarten's Washington Post article here recently. And a rather fine article it was. Aunt Gertrude would've said he gave those rapscallion nephews of hers their comeuppance.
    Sure the writing isn't classic. It even smells right out loud at times (a lot of times, if we want to be honest with ourselves.) But that isn't the point of giving tribute to The Hardy Boys canon as adults. Or even re-reading the things.
    We (and I'm speaking for myself here, and maybe some of you) read them because they remind us of a time in our lives when everything was simpler. A time when we didn't scrutinize everything for logic. Sure, you can't carry on a conversation on motorcycles without shouting. But how many pre-adolescents really know that? And how many care.
    The Hardy Boys is about being a kid, having the freedoms and appetites of a kid, without having the burdens of an adult. And being treated like an adult, to boot. How many sixteen year olds do we know who can walk up to the chief of police in a town, carry on an intelligent conversation, and be taken seriously? None. How many can approach the head of a local bank and offer to solve a mystery for them? And how many can do what they damn well please no matter what their mother thinks? When you were sixteen (Gene) did you ever hop in your roadster, roar down to your boat, then set out on a trip to the far ends of the earth? Of course not. Which is exactly this fare was so attractive to us as kids and so stressful to the sensitive and talented author.
    So, Gene, get over it. It's fantasy and that's why we like it.
    And as they say on late night TV: wait - there's more.
    The Hardy Boys are a window into other epochs in American adolescence. Times when boys and girls didn't drink, smoke dope (except for "Crooked Arrows"), have torrid sex in the backseat of their cars (picture Frank and Callie…on the second thought, don't), and were generally respectful to their elders. When we look back on these works, we can see a gradual evolution in culture through the speech and actions of the characters.
    So, I see manifold reasons for their continued popularity. No parental strictures, but a strong sense of right and wrong. Complete freedom and respect. Cars, planes, boats, trains, and all the adventures (however implausible) that any kids can have, eternal youth, and a gentle reminder of other times in America and other times when our own lives were not so complex.
    That reminds me: I was out walking last night in the neighborhood (after a hearty meal) and I saw a mansion, set back from the road. The lawn was overgrown and the shrubbery shaded the windows. I saw a light in one of the upper windows and shadows flitting around. A branch snapped and for just a moment, I thought I saw a sinister figure crouched under a window, listening.
    This bears watching, I thought. Suddenly a fist lashed out of the darkness and caught me full on the jaw.
    It was the homeowner. I had been trespassing.
 

  Hardys In Review  

    While I was going to review the recently published "The Mysterious Case Of Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys" by Carole Kismaric & Marvin Heiferman, I've pretty much decided to forego that dubious "pleasure". Nevertheless, I will mention that, in addition to being an example of the worst in hack writing and a virtual encyclopedia of sociological claptrap, this book contains a myriad of factual errors, a fair-to-middlin' sized dung heap of shaky assumptions, more than a few tenuous conclusions and scads of illustrations, photographs and sidebars which have absolutely no connection whatsoever to Nancy or the Boys and are apparently included for no other reason than to pad out this somewhat thin book.
    In the Acknowledgements section, the authors thank Bill Rosen "who suggested we tackle Nancy Drew & the Hardy Boys as our next book project." Too bad Mr. Rosen didn't initially suggest they tackle holding hands and diving head-first into an over-ripe septic tank, then we'd have been spared this tripe created by two hacks who have no knowledge of the subject, probably never read a Hardy Boys book in their lives and are driven solely by unbridled greed.
    Desperate, nearly suicidal buyers are already frantically trying to unload their copies on eBay for a fraction of the cover price but eBay's computer system can't keep up with the load! All over the Bay area power grids are shutting down in a valiant but vain attempt to provide eBay's faltering system with more and more juice! Fires are racing out of control through all neighborhoods and a starving populace appeals for Federal aid! The President placed the entire area under martial law and Federal troops are shooting rioters on sight! Oh - the humanity!
 
  Lycos Book-A-Minute Bedtime Stories  

The Hardy Boys Series

By Franklin W. Dixon

Ultra-Condensed by Samuel Stoddard and David J. Parker


Joe
I'm the fair-haired rash one.
Frank
I'm the dark-haired studious one and a year older than Joe.(A MYSTERY happens. The Hardy Boys find a CLUE. They go to an exotic LOCALE with nothing but POCKET CHANGE and INVESTIGATE it. Chet Morton gets KIDNAPPED.)

Official
Stop! You're not allowed in here! Oh wait, you're Fenton's boys. Let me give you a tour of our top secret restricted area. (The Hardy Boys witness a SHADY DEAL taking place.)

Joe
Our case seems to be related to the case our father is working on, just like last time. (The Hardy Boys suspect a SUSPICIOUS guy, but he turns out to be INNOCENT. They solve the CASE, and they capture the BAD GUYS.)

THE END

Editor: Seems about the only things these fellows omitted were the Boys getting involved in an accident with their (car, motorcycle, boat, other) and one or the other (or both!) of them getting knocked out and/or tied up!
 

  Bayport Mail Bag  

From: WZ3MARILYN@aol.com
I want you to know that I enjoyed your Hardy Boy web site. Nice job!
I recently saw a Hardy Boys book club edition (The House on the Cliff, I think) on a shelf at a local antique dealer. This piqued my interest. I searched your site for info on the Hardy Boys BC editions, but I have some more questions that I hope you can answer:
What year(s) were these editions available?
Which book clubs marketed these editions? (Or did Grosset and Dunlap establish its own juvenile series book club?)
Why did they release only three of the novels in book club editions? Did they have plans to do BC editions of the whole series? Were the sales poor?
Since these book club editions are the only ones with the picture covers printed on dust jackets, does that mean that they are of some interest to Hardy Boys collectors (as opposed to the generally low interest of collectors in most book club editions)?

From: From: gsanders@ricochet.net (Gary L. Sanders)
I am just about to print out my first restored dustjacket, a wrap-Gillies "Mark On the Door". It was ripped and badly faded on the spine, but by scanning it in at 600dpi, and using Photoshop, I have restored the color balance and contrast, eliminating the fading, and fixed all of the tears and chips. I have printed the spine and front out using a new Epson Photo 700 1440dpi printer with 6 inks in the color cartridge and a black cartridge. This printer is amazing. Epson makes a glossy photo paper for panoramic shots that is 8.3"x22.5", perfect for the dustjackets. The weight of the paper is also ideal and bends around the hardcover without cracking; of course, I will still use a mylar cover on it. The ink actually looks like it is under the gloss coat, just like on a real dustjacket. I prefer the Gillies wrap jackets, but I have quite a number of yellow spines in the early volumes, which I guess are Rogers, so I will have scans available soon. I will send you an example dustjacket when I get the first one printed out. Materials cost for paper and ink is about $2.50/dj. But first I have to upgrade the hard drive to 3.1G so I can handle Win95, Photoshop, and the large 150M 24-bit 600dpi dustjacket bitmap files, my current 1.3G drive won't let me do that. I should have the new drive on Monday. I'm also going to be doing the Drews and the Danas DJs, as my collection there is getting complete. I wish I could get the rights to produce the dustjackets for those who would like to have them, but I'm sure that S&S would never allow this because, even with a stiff royalty, there would not be enough money in it for them to open an account to track royalties. But I may consider selling tweed books on ebay at a premium price and including free dustjackets as an approach to make them available, even that may not be a smart idea. So maybe this will end up being just for my collection. Thought you might be interested in what the current printing technology can do.

From: didsoft@shaw.wave.ca (Greg Wilson)
I haven't noticed any additions to the Drinking Game lately, so I thought I'd add a couple (Hope these are new):
Drink whenever the boys use their belts for something other than holding up their pants.
Drink whenever they go into a cave. Drink again if they find a hidden tunnel and again if they find someone tied up in the hidden tunnel. Finish the bottle if they get discovered before they can free the prisoners and escape.
You've mentioned that some covers were printed upside down, or mismatched with the text. My copy of Widcat Swamp has a different problem. It looks like it was printed twice but slightly mis-aligned on one pass. (I believe colour printing lays the ink on in three passes, a red, a blue and a green pass. In this case the red pass was misaligned with the other two.) It almost looks like it's supposed to be viewed with 3D glasses. The Bayport Times reported that Wildcat Swamp was also printed in Asia. This appears to be one of the US printings. (Hardy logo in middle of spine, printed in United States of America inside.) This copy has the brown paper inside drawing and is copyright 1952, ie pre 1969 revision.
Thanks again for a great paper.

Readers - This is your forum to tell the world your thoughts on the Hardys!
Letters may be edited for content, spelling etc. but, then again, maybe not!
Full name & e-mail address required for your letter to appear here.
 

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