An Addictive, All-Consuming Storytelling From Kris Bertin and Alexander Forbes
With the acclaimed Hobtown Mystery Stories, childhood friends writer Kris Bertin and artist Alexander Forbes have created a graphic novel series that is equal parts captivating, creepy, charming, and compulsively readable. Teaming with colorist Jason Fischer-Kouhi, Bertin and Forbes create an electric story about an eccentric small town (Hobtown, population: 2,006) that has been plagued for centuries by a litany of unexplained phenomena: missing men, pagan secret societies, strange rituals, conspiracies, curses, and crimes. At the heart of it all is a group of teenagers who come together to save their town and uncover the truths their parents kept from them.
“Imagine if A24 re-made Stranger Things and you begin to understand the ambition of the strange and surreal story that Kris Bertin and artist Alexander Forbes have undertaken,” said Oni Press Editor-in-Chief Sierra Hahn. “There’s a multi-generational mystery, a supernatural mini-man, and a ragtag group of teen detectives. I genuinely love this series. Hobtown Mystery Stories just might be the best-kept secret in comics. These graphic novels are a personal obsession for me and soon they will be for you, too.”
“What’s delightful about Hobtown Mystery Stories is the way each volume reinforces and deepens the series’ larger mythology, while also working as a standalone reading experience that will burrow into your brain,” said Oni Press Senior Editor Bess Pallares. “You have a missing person’s case in volume one, boarding school horror in volume two, and a flying saucer in volume three–the first all-new Hobtown book published by Oni Press. Kris and Alex have created an astonishingly rich world of quaint, small-town intrigue–exactly the books my young, library-card toting self hoped I could read as an adult. You can start the series with any volume you like, because I guarantee you’ll be back for the rest.”
In Hobtown Mystery Stories: The Secret of the Saucer, the lines between conspiracy and reality become intertwined like never before during the town’s highly contested mayoral election. The arrival of an unexplained, unidentified flying object, a chaotic and unhinged Ape Lord, and an outbreak of literal backward thinking–the high school Teen Detective Club should be at the forefront of the case, but is rife with conflict and its own crisis of leadership as the sleuths become increasingly paranoid. Is there anyone they can trust?
Hobtown Mystery Stories: The Secret of the Saucer includes a tribute to the visionary filmmaker and painter David Lynch, whose storytelling informs so much of the story that Bertin and Forbes are creating. Hobtown is, after all, “like every town you’ve ever seen. And no place you’ve ever known.”
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Author Profile
- I'm Al Mega the CEO of Comic Crusaders, CEO of the Undercover Capes Podcast Network, CEO of Geekery Magazine & Owner of Splintered Press (coming soon). I'm a fan of comics, cartoons and old school video games. Make sure to check out our podcasts/vidcasts and more!
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