Reading Entertainment for Teens: English Comics

This page covers information on some of the popular comic/novel characters collected from internet.

Nancy Drew

Nancy Drew

The Nancy Drew Mystery Stories was the long-running "main" Nancy Drew series, published between 1930 and 2003.

Nancy Drew is a fictional 18-year-old amateur sleuth, living in the town of River Heights with her father, attorney Carson Drew, and their housekeeper, Hannah Gruen. Nancy spends her time solving mysteries, some of which she stumbles upon and some of which begin as cases of her father's. Nancy is often assisted in solving mysteries by her two closest friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne, and also occasionally by her boyfriend, Ned Nickerson. Ned is a college student at Emerson College.

The character of Nancy Drew has gone through many permutations over the years. The Nancy Drew Mystery series was revised beginning in 1959 with commentators agreeing that Nancy's character changed significantly from the original Nancy of the books written in the 1930s and 1940s.

The Secret of the Old Clock,
the first Nancy Drew mystery

Commentators also often see a difference between the Nancy Drew of the original series, the Nancy of The Nancy Drew Files, and the Nancy of Girl Detective series. Nevertheless, some commentators find no significant difference between the different permutations of Nancy Drew, finding Nancy to be simply a good role model for girls. Despite revisions, what hasn't changed, however, are Nancy's basic values, her goals, her humility, and her magical gift for having at least nine lives.

For more than six decades, her essence has remained intact. Nancy is a "teen detective queen" who "offers girl readers something more than action-packed adventure: she gives them something original. Convention has it that girls are passive, respectful, and emotional, but with the energy of a girl shot out of a cannon, Nancy bends conventions and acts out every girl's fantasies of power.

Source: en.wikipedia.org

Nancy Drew Series Books

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Hardy Boys

The Hardy Boys, Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in various mystery series for children and teens.

First Hardy Boys Mystery

The characters were created by Edward Stratemeyer, the founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book-packaging firm, and the books have been written by many different ghostwriters over the years. The books are published under the collective pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon.

A new Hardy Boys series, the Hardy Boys Casefiles, was created in 1987, and featured murders, violence, and international espionage. The original Hardy Boys Mystery Stories series ended in 2005. A new series, Undercover Brothers, was launched the same year, featuring updated versions of the characters who narrate their adventures in the first person. The Undercover Brothers ended in 2012 and was replaced in 2013 by The Hardy Boys Adventures, also narrated in the first person.

The Hardy Boys are fictional teenage brothers and amateur detectives. They live in the city of Bayport on Barmet Bay with their father, detective Fenton Hardy, their mother, Laura Hardy, and their Aunt Gertrude. Frank, the older brother, is eighteen, and his younger brother Joe is seventeen. The Hardy Boys are constantly involved in adventure and action. Despite frequent danger, the boys never lose their nerve. They live in an atmosphere of mystery and intrigue.
Source: en.wikipedia.org

Hardy Boys Series Books

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Updated by Abhay Bora on 29th OCT 2013

Scooby-Doo

Scooby-Doo is the longest-running United States animated franchise produced for Saturday morning television in several different versions from 1969 to the present. The series was created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears for Hanna-Barbera Productions, who produced numerous spin-offs and related works until being absorbed in 1997 into Warner Bros, which has handled production since then. Though the format of the show and the cast (and ages) of characters have varied significantly over the years, the most familiar versions of the show feature a talking Great Dane named Scooby-Doo and four teenagers: Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, and Shaggy Rogers.

These characters drive around the world in a van called the "Mystery Machine," and solve mysteries typically involving tales of ghosts and other supernatural forces. At the end of each episode, the supernatural forces turn out to have a rational explanation (usually a criminal of some sort trying to scare people away so that they can commit crimes). Later versions of the show featured different variations on the supernatural theme of the show, and include additional characters, such as a worlock named Vincent Van Ghoul, a kid named Flim-Flam, Scooby's cousin Scooby-Dum and nephew Scrappy-Doo, in addition to or instead of some of the wanted characters.

Source: http://scoobydoo.wikia.com/wiki/Scooby-Doo_(franchise)

In all versions of the character, Scooby-Doo and Shaggy share several personality traits, mostly being cowardly and perpetually hungry. But their friends (Velma, Daphne and Fred) encourage them to go after the costumed villains, usually with "Scooby Snacks", a biscuit-like dog treat or cookie snack (usually shaped like a bone or, in later versions of the cartoons, Scooby's dog tag), though Scooby's inherent loyalty and courage does often force him to take a more heroic stance. Scooby is also extremely ticklish and this is seen in many of the television shows and movies.

Source: en.wikipedia.org