Hobtown Mystery Stories returns for a third graphic novel this year, titled The Secret of the Saucer. The first volume to be published by Oni Press, writer Kris Bertin and artist Alexander Forbes have created a graphic novel series that is creepy, charming, and impossible to put down. Bertin and Forbes are childhood friends, who studied separate artistic disciplines in part to make comics together as adults.
Teaming with colorist Jason Fischer-Kouhi, Bertin and Forbes continue to explore the eccentric small town that has been plagued for centuries by a litany of unexplained phenomena. From missing men, to secret societies with strange rituals, with conspiracies and crimes, Hobtown is a special place. 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 for all their lives.
Oni Press Editor-in-chief Sierra Hahn had this to say about the book:
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. 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.
Meanwhile, Oni Press Senior Editor Bess Pallares had this to say:
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. 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 all threaten the small town and it’s inhabitants. 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 anxious about the situation surrounding them. Is there anyone they can trust?
Hobtown Mystery Stories: The Secret of the Saucer will include a tribute to the visionary filmmaker and artist David Lynch, who passed away earlier this year and whose storytelling is a huge influence to so much of the story that Bertin and Forbes are creating.
A preview of Hobtown Mystery Stories: The Secret of the Saucer can be seen below. The graphic novel is now available for pre-order from your local comic shops and most major bookstores.