HARDY BOYS 18 “D.A.N.G.E.R. SPELLS THE HANGMAN!” in stores September 15th!

Hi everyone!

Your faithful editorial assistant Mike here, blogging about the newest HARDY BOYS Graphic Novel “D.A.N.G.E.R. Spells the Hangman!” The newest offering from Scott Lobdell and Paulo Henrique hits stores on September 15th, and we think you’ll have a great time trying to figure out who this guy REALLY is when experiencing this new adventure:

In The HARDY BOYS #18 “D.A.N.G.E.R. Spells the Hangman!”, Joe Hardy must go it alone at a spelling bee where a mysterious villain aims to cause total destruction at the event. With Frank on another case at the same time, can Joe handle the Hangman on his own? And just who is this Hangman? A former pro-wrestler? A disguised villain from the Hardy Boys’ past? Or maybe a cat lover who is angry about all of the dead cat posts on the Papercutz blog over the last few weeks? You’ll have to pick up the HARDY BOYS #18 to find out!

Hi Everyone!

It’s me, Paulo dropping in to write about a new project I’ve been working on when I’m not drawing the HARDY BOYS, which isn’t very often. I love drawing the Joe and Frank, but one of my biggest loves outside of music and art is…

SPACE!

I am a big fan of astronomy and Science Fiction. If you are new to Science Fiction, pick up a book by Ray Bradbury. Just don’t blame me if you get hooked and can’t stop reading him.

Recently I began writing and drawing my own graphic novel about an astrobiologist who explores new worlds to learn more about the evolution of intelligent lifeforms on planets far away. I like the character, but I haven’t named her yet! I’ve never published my own work and the HARDY BOYS pages take up most of my time, so I’ve only got about 10 pages done. I hope that it becomes a full-length graphic novel. I thought you all might like to see a little peek at some of my work that isn’t HARDY BOYS, so here goes…This is a three page sequence where our protagonist has landed on a new planet only to find some surprises…

I hope you enjoy this look at some of the work I do away from the HARDY BOYS. I love Sci Fi and this has been a fun project for me. Keep reading our blog and thanks to all you fans out there!

NOW BEING SOLICITED IN COMICBOOK STORES AND GENERAL BOOK STORES SEPTEMBER 2009…

CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED # 6: “The Scarlet Letter”

By Nathaniel Hawthorne, adapted by P. Craig Russell

Jill Thompson, artist

D. H. Lawrence said that there could be no more perfect work of the American imagination than The Scarlet Letter, which makes it ideal material for CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED. In addition to his incredible graphic adaptations of operas, the fairy tales of Oscar Wilde, and Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, P. Craig Russell is known for both his collaborations with best-selling author Neil Gaiman (The Sandman story “Ramadan”) and adaptations of Gaiman’s works, such as “Coraline” and “Sandman: The Endless,” all of which makes Russell an inspired choice to adapt The Scarlet Letter. Russell broke down the novel into comicbook script form as well as page layouts, providing artist Jill Thompson, also a well-know Neil Gaiman collaborator (“Sandman: Brief Lives”), the foundation for her beautifully painted comics pages

6½ x 9, 56 pages, full-color, hardcover, $9.95. ISBN: 978-1-59707-162-8

THE HARDY BOYS #18: “D.A.N.G.E.R. Spells the Hangman!”

By Scott Lobdell

Paulo Henrique, Artist

Frank and Joe go undercover at a national spelling bee where a mysterious madman known as the Hangman is determined to erase the competition!  Teens from across the globe have been invited to attend, and A.T.A.C. and the Hardy Boys have to do everything they can to keep the Hangman from spelling disaster!

5 x 7½, 96 pages, full-color, paperback, $7.95.

ISBN: 978-1-59707-160-4

Also in hardcover: $12.95, ISBN: 978-1-59707-161-1

THE HARDY BOYS #13-16 Boxed Set

By Scott Lobdell

Paulo Henrique, Artist

Volumes 13 through 16 collected into one boxed set with close to 400 pages of reading! Value priced at under 30 dollars.

5 x 7½, 384 pages, full-color, paperback, $29.95. ISBN: 978-1-59707-173-4

BIONICLE #1-4 Boxed Set

By Greg Farhstey

Carlos D’Anda and Randy Elliot, Artists

Collecting the first four volumes of the hit Papercutz BIONICLE graphic novels with 400 pages of reading! Value priced at under 30 dollars.

5 x 7½, 400 pages, full-color, paperback, $29.95.

ISBN: 978-1-59707-176-5

Hi Everyone!

Editorial Assistant Mike Petranek here, very pleased to see that our blog readers have reacted with such excitement to the latest posts by Editor-In-Chief Jim Salicrup and PAPERCUTZ contributors Scott Lobdell, Greg Farshtey and Sho Murase. We love to hear your thoughts, and the upcoming HARDY BOYS, BIONICLE, and NANCY DREW volumes are very exciting. We’ll keep you posted on any news in the future! And if you have become accustomed to just hopping over to the blog page and skipping the PAPERCUTZ homepage, check it out! We’ve got new previews and flash animation from everyone’ s favorite Editor-in-Cheese: GERONIMO STILTON!

Now that Summer has finally arrived, many of you will probably be going to the beach or sitting poolside under the sun. A great way to soak up some rays is with a PAPERCUTZ graphic novel by your side. Not only that, but this past week 3 new graphic novels hit stores at the same time, giving you an abundance of books to take with you to the beach, on road trips, or wherever your  Summer adventures may take you!

First up is THE HARDY BOYS #17 “Word Up!”, which coincidentally begins when Joe and Frank take a trip to the beach, expecting a nice day off from A.T.A.C. and the stress of everyday life. Too bad their vacation must be put on hold when they find out that someone is out to silence controversial local D.J. John Pryde…permanently! The boys may not like his bombastic style or aggressive personality, but they’ll risk life and limb to keep him on the air!

Next we have CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED #5 “Hamlet”. This exciting tale of murder, madness, and revenge still rivets me every time I pick it up. I’ve read Hamlet countless times and have  performed the role of Horatio (Hamlet’s best buddy) on stage. This dark adaptation by Steven Grant and Tom Mandrake really captures the heart and soul of the play, one of my personal favorites. If  you’ve never experienced Hamlet on stage or on the page, now’s a great time to start!

Lastly, BIONICLE 5 “The Battle of Voya Nui” has also hit stores, with a brand new look brought by the art of Stuart Sayger. This is an action-packed BIONICLE graphic novel that begins a darker turn for the BIONICLE Universe. Just look at this sample of the artwork!

Those two Piraka are not guys I would invite over for dinner any time soon! And that’s just the start of it. Greg Farshtey and Stuart Sayger take us onto an island where nothing is as it appears and danger lurks around every corner in “The Battle of Voya Nui”.

Now that I’ve shared our newest titles with you, I’ve got to get back to helping our Editor-in-Chief Jim Salicrup with the mountain of papers on his desk. Before I go, do any of you know the origin of the story of Hamlet, and the original Danish Prince Shakespeare based him on? Shakespeare often used real historical figures as the source of his plays, and the story of Hamlet goes back over 1,000 years! I’d love to hear what you have to say about that. I’ll be back soon with news on upcoming titles including GERONIMO STILTON, CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED, and NANCY DREW! Until then, have a great Summer, keep reading, and watch out for PAPERCUTZ!

-Mike

IT’S FREE COMICS WEEKEND!

And You can get your hands on some free
HARDY BOYS and NANCY DREW Comics!

Hi there everyone!

The weekend of May 2nd is Free Comics Weekend across the US, and UCLICK, distibutor of NANCY DREW and HARDY BOYS comicbooks for iPhones and iPod touch, is offering free Papercutz comics! This afternoon, Friday May 1st, until tomorrow night at midnight, you can download the first part of NANCY DREW #1 “The Demon of River Heights” and the first part of THE HARDY BOYS #1 “The Ocean of Osyria” for your iPhone or iPod touch absolutely free!

If you haven’t checked out the HARDY BOYS or NANCY DREW comics for your iPhone or iPod touch, it’s a great time to do so. Each issue of a HARDY BOY or NANCY DREW comic is regularly $.99 cents and features the touch-and-swipe technology that allows you to scroll from panel to panel with ease. If you are a commuter or carpooler on your way to school, a great way to kill some time is with a HARDY BOYS or NANCY DREW comic. Just be sure not to read while you’re driving! Click here to be taken directly to the iTunes app store and pick up your free comic (you must have iTunes already installed on your computer). You can also search “Uclick” on the App Store on the iPhone or on iTunes to find these comics. Enjoy Free Comics Weekend!

-Mike the Editorial Assistant

Hey, everyone,

Interested in getting a look at some of the cover art before we add the titles?  Well, have a look here:

This is from THE HARDY BOYS #16 “Shhhhhh!” - IN STORES NOW What follows is  my cover sketch from THE HARDY BOYS #17 “Word Up!”

After I make some changes, I draw in pencil the black and white art which I then ink. After that, Laurie E. Smith colors the pages so what you end up with is this:
You can see how we changed John Pryde (the guy in the background) a bit. In my sketch he looked like he was raising his hand in class or something,  or shaking a fist at Joe and Frank. I also did a little bit of a fisheye lens treatment.  You see this kind of camera shot in a lot of skateboarding videos.  (Go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisheye_lens for more info.)  Miniature fisheye lenses are used in a lot of security cameras.  Using one here gives you the impression that this is a closed-off world we’re peering into.  “Word Up!” is a great Hardy Boys title;  it’s in stores in May. Here’s some of my art from upcoming volumes…

Cover from THE HARDY BOYS #18 “D.A.N.G.E.R. Spells the Hangman!”

Cover from THE HARDY BOYS #19 “CHAOS at 30,000 Feet!”

ENJOY!

-PH

Hi there,

My name is Paulo Henrique and most of you know me as the artist of the Hardy Boys for Papercutz.  One thing you might not know is that I prefer to go by PH instead of “Paulo Henrique.”  I’d like to share a bit about myself and let you all ask any questions you may have for me. I always like to hear from fans!
I was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil where I started drawing at a very young age.  The first thing I remember drawing was from when I was 6.  I was in art class and I drew a picture of Darth Vader.  The teacher said she thought that I had drawn a bride in a black wedding dress!  I always liked bad guys the best, but I knew that Vader was a good guy under that mask.  I think that’s why I liked him so much as a kid.  After that, I just kept on drawing and drawing.
I really like “larger than life” characters, and when I was growing up I was drawn to Manga style before I even knew that’s what it was called. For those of you who don’t know what Manga is, it’s really just a word for Japanese art. It’s a style that we use in the Hardy Boys a lot. There are a million definitions of “Manga” out there, but an easy way to identify the style is characters with exaggerated faces and bodies. In English, the translation is actually “Japanese comics,” so you’ll see a lot of stuff out there called “Manga” that actually isn’t.  If you want a good example of some Manga Hardy Boys, look at the fourth page of comics in THE HARDY BOYS Graphic Novel #14: “Haley Danielle’s Top Eight!”:

Manga Joe Hardy!

Some of the best-known artists who shaped what we know as Manga today are Machiko Hasegawa and Osamu Tezuka. Readers have probably seen Tezuka’s “Astro Boy” at some point in their lives. Google it!  The history of Manga goes all the way back to the 1800’s and there’s a lot of info on the Internet if you do some searching.
Back to my art!  Some of you may want to know who my favorite comics characters are and how I got started.  Well, I love that blue bomber!  I’m talking about Megaman.  I started drawing him when I was a teenager and I’ve beaten all of the original Nintendo games. Megaman is a Manga character and he jump-started my career.  In 1997, I was hired to draw the Megaman comicbook for Brazilian publisher Magnum and ended up working with Sidney Lima, who would work on THE HARDY BOYS at Papercutz years later.  At that time, a lot of publishers got interested in Manga, so I met with Magnum and did a test for Megaman.  Both Sidney Lima and I ended up getting the job, and we became friends.  Years later I started to work for Yabu media and was doing an electronic graphic novel called COMBO RANGES, so I called him to work with me.  This led to us collaborating on THE HARDY BOYS.  He is a good friend and a great artist.  I have to thank him for introducing me to Papercutz and THE HARDY BOYS.  The Megaman series took off, and I ended up teaching Manga style to young artists at a place called Impacto Studios in Brazil.
Impacto Studios is a place where young artists can come to learn and improve their art, while more established artists teach classes to students and are introduced to companies that may want to hire them. At Impacto, I became friends with Klebs Junior, the founder of the studio and a comicbook artist himself.  Klebs is well known in comics. Aside from founding Impacto he also illustrated “Snakes on a Plane” (DC), “Excalibur” (Marvel Comics), “Harbinger” and a bunch of other titles.  Klebs became my agent and helped get my work to America.  When he heard that Top Cow Productions was looking for an artist for their “Myth Warriors” series, he set up a test for me.  Top Cow hired me and my work ended up getting distributed to a much larger audience in the US.
I worked for a lot of different magazines and publications in Brazil, but it wasn’t until volume 6 of  THE HARDY BOYS that I started working on that series.  My friend Sidney needed some help.  He asked me to help draw the Hardy Boys on #6 and then I started drawing it full-time and have no plans to stop!  I just finished my 11th volume of the series.
Aside from comics, I really love music.  I have remixed a lot of Megaman songs from the video games and I play guitar and sing in a hard rock trio called “Octane” in Brazil.  You can find us on MySpace and YouTube.  As far as my favorite groups go, I like Avenged Sevenfold, Story of the Year, and System of a Down.  From the “Old School” I love Iron Maiden and Metallica.  I also like pop and classical music.  I love Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart.  I don’t understand classical music, but I appreciate it so much.  I like some Brazilian pop music but I really dislike, (I don’t want to say hate, it’s a strong word)…SAMBA!  Samba’s the national music of Brazil.  It’s upbeat and encourages listeners to dance.  It’s not for me, though.
So all of you readers may have questions for me.  Send them in and I’ll try to answer as quickly as possible!  My favorite titles from THE HARDY BOYS so far are #8: “A Hardy Day’s Night” (just a beautiful father and son story) and #15: “Live Free, Die Hardy!” which was action-packed.  I’ve got to thank Jim Salicrup, Terry Nantier, Scott Lobdell, Laurie E. Smith, and Mark Lerer for all of their hard work and support.  Perhaps most importantly: thanks to you fans!  Without you we wouldn’t be able to put these great graphic novels together.  Thanks and be sure to ask me questions!

-PH