Paranoia Runs Rampant in Exclusive Preview of HOBTOWN MYSTERY STORIES: THE SECRET OF THE SAUCER, Now Available from Oni Press!

Imagine reading The Boxcar Children, Nancy Drew, or Encyclopedia Brown through a David Lynch lens and you’ll begin to get an idea of what it’s like to turn the pages of Hobotwn Mystery Stories. Set in a secluded Canadian town where a group of teenage sleuths kill time by trying not to be killed as they solve strange and quirky cases, writer Kris Bertin, artist Alexander Forbes, and colorist Jason Fischer-Kouhi bring the Hobotwn Mystery Stories graphic novel series back to comic shops today with The Secret of the Saucer, and as a special treat for Daily Dead readers, we have an exclusive preview of the third volume that you can read right now!

Below, you can read our exclusive preview of Hobotwn Mystery Stories: The Secret of the Saucer, featuring an epidemic of backward thinking, a violent robbery at the ballot box, a desperate search for the Ape Lord, and the persistent desire to simply enjoy a hamburger.

We also have the official press release with additional details, and in case you missed it, read our previous Q&A with Kris Bertin and Alexander Forbes!

To keep up to date on Hobotwn Mystery Stories: The Secret of the Saucer and other exciting releases, be sure to visit:

Press Release: THE HOBTOWN JUNIOR DETECTIVE CLUB RETURNS FOR THE SECRET OF THE SAUCER! 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. There’s 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.”

Hobtown Mystery Stories: The Secret of the Saucer will be available on November 25, 2025.

For more updates on Oni Press, visit them on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

About the creators
Kris Bertin and Alexander Forbes are childhood friends who studied separate disciplines in order to reunite and make comics as adults. They grew up in Lincoln, New Brunswick, and live in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

About Oni Press
The Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group is a premier comic book and graphic novel publisher located in Portland, Oregon. Merged with Lion Forge Comics in 2019 but established in 1997, Oni Press publishes a thoughtfully curated line of award-winning original and licensed graphic novels and comic books for readers of all ages. Notable titles from the Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group include: The Tea Dragon Society, Sheets, Gender Queer, A Quick & Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns, Scott Pilgrim, and Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty™.