The 39 Clues was a staple of my grade school days. I remember seeing the cover at a Scholastic Book Fair catalog in my school. From there the obsession continued. Not living in America, I actually had to rely on the bookstores getting the imports quickly. Generally, at best I see them on shelves a month after release, at worst (as is the case with The Black Circle) it took about 3 months. There was that time with The Emperor’s Code where the book went on the shelves about a week prior to release though, I remember manually typing out the continuation to Gordon Korman’s excerpt video and posting it to the Cahill forums – Google Lens wasn’t a thing back then.

The story was good but what really got me was the cards and the Flash missions and the virtual cards/clues collection. I got all 39 clues, became a Madrigal and continued reading and playing up until around the crazy American politician/billionaire arc, or was it the one replicating famous disasters? I don’t think I finished the arc, but I got too lazy to continue reading. I revisited the new games over at the Scholastic website, though it’s sad that my collected clues and cards did not carry over. I put a lot of effort on that. I’ll also still remember my own custom agent card. I know it’s one of the first 30 cards made and my “name” was SecretAssassin1.

Regardless, the series holds a special place in me. The subsequent arcs are definitely less memorable, but I still remember the original clue hunt arc. I’ve always wanted to see a graphical representation of the story – the Japanese comic looked promising, but sadly I can’t read much of it – hence why the graphic novel definitely caught my attention. Sara’s reaction to it definitely matched a lot of my sentiment, except maybe Saladin. I like that the comic version is way cuter, but I think the Egyptian lineage and spots is important, particularly for the cryptex clue in Beyond the Grave. I do look forward to see the entire arc adapted, and will definitely buy the One False Note comic if/when it comes out.