Joining Terry in the new venture is comics veteran Jim Salicrup as editor-in-chief. "I'm thrilled to be a part of Papercutz. Taking well-established characters and adapting them to appeal to new generations of fans is something I tend to specialize in." Jim is perhaps best remembered as the editor of Marvel's best-selling Spider-Man #1 by Todd McFarlane, as well as the editor-in-chief of the Topps Comics line which featured such licensed properties as The X-Files, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Zorro. "The trick is simply keeping the heart and soul of whatever made the characters successful to begin with, and telling new stories in as contemporary a manner as possible. It also doesn't hurt to have great talent as Scott, Stefan, Lea, and Sho to make the characters come alive in such new and unexpected ways. Carolyn Keene and Franklin W. Dixon would be proud!"
The
stories do remain true to the classic characters. No sooner do the
Hardy Boys solve one case, involving the rescue of a Kentucky Derby
contender called Jackpot, and they're suddenly involved in a case
involving their old pal, Chet Morton, who's wanted by the FBI for
smuggling an art treasure known as the Ocean of Osyria which was stolen
from a museum in a war-torn Mid-Eastern country. Meanwhile, Nancy
Drew makes her acting debut in a college film about a local urban
legend known as the Demon of River Heights, only it doesn't appear
that the demon knows it's just supposed to be an urban legend. Joining
Frank and Joe Hardy, as well as Nancy Drew, are all the other well-loved
cast of characters, such as Callie Shaw, Iola Morton, Fenton and Laura
Hardy, Carson Drew, Ned Nickerson, Bess Marvin, George Fayne, and
more. Scott Lobdell, creator of Marvel's Generation X and long-time
X-Men writer, is a master at writing action-packed series with young
protagonists. He's creating stories that will appeal not only to tweens,
but to all fans of exciting adventure stories. Stefan Petrucha is
known for both expertly capturing the personalities of Scully and
Mulder in the X-Files comics and Carl Kolchak in the Nightstalker
graphic novels and weaving original taut tales of suspense. His Nancy
Drew stories will not only appeal to Nancy's vast legion of female
fans, but also to anyone who loves a good mystery.
It was important to Terry and Jim to also find the right artists for these famous characters. "While it's certainly a big plus that the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew are household names, we didn't want the comics to look at all old-fashioned or dated. We were thrilled to get Lea Hernandez, Daniel Rendon, and Sho Murase to give our teen detectives their new look," Jim said.
Indeed.
It almost looks as if America's teen detectives are getting a manga
makeover. "Not quite," Jim protests. "There's a big audience out there
that now accepts the manga style as the contemporary comics style.
Also, the manga-style is far more naturalistic in portraying realistic
human characters, thus far better suited to the type of stories and
characters we're presenting. But to be clear, we're not trying to
create authentic manga material, we're trying to present exciting
stories about these really cool characters in a very up-to-date way,
to create the freshest approach possible, and in a very reader-friendly
format."
In the fall of 2005 Papercutz launched Zorro in graphic novels as well. Plans are afoot for other new series to be launched in 2006.
All Papercutz series come out as pocket-sized full color quarterly graphic novels moderately priced at $7.95.
