"Powerfully rendered" -The New York Times

“ ...a weirdly warm-hearted nightmare.” -Booklist (Starred Review)

“...an exceptional, odd mystery.” -Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

Perfect for fans of Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet and Hardy Boys mysteries, The Hobtown Mystery Stories take the teen investigator genre to new levels as they explore small town identity and the surreal.

Welcome to Hobtown, a charmingly bleak village (Population: 2,006) and an easy place to get bored if you don’t make your own fun.

Hobtown Regional High’s top girl, Dana Nance, runs the Teen Detective Club—a registered after-school program that makes it their business to investigate each and every one of their town's bizarre occurrences including pagan secret societies, psychic assaults, and possible “wee man” sightings. Their small world of missing pets and shed fires is turned upside down when real-life kid adventurer and globetrotter Sam Finch comes to town and enlists them in their first real case: the search for his missing father. Something strange is going on, and no one in Hobtown will talk about it. It turns out Sam’s dad is the sixth man to go missing this year. The rot runs deep in Hobtown, and it’s up to the teen detectives and associates to stay alive long enough to crack the Case of the Missing Men!

Childhood friends Kris Bertin and Alexander Forbes have built a truly unique and discrete universe in Hobtown—an exploration of small town identity drawing from the world of pulp, filtered through a lens of esoteric spirituality, skewed genre tropes, deft character work, and an incredible eye for detail.

Kris Bertin is a Halifax-based writer of novels, short stories, graphic novels, and screenplays. His first collection of short stories, Bad Things Happen, won the 2016 Writer's Trust of Canada's Danuta Gleed Award. He is a two-time winner of the Jack Hodgins 'Founders' Award for Short Fiction and his stories have been published in The Walrus, TNQ, The Malahat Review, PRISM International, and many others. Kris Bertin's graphic novel, a surreal mystery story set in a remote east coast village (co-created with artist Alexander Forbes), The Case of the Missing Men, was nominated for a Doug Wright Award. He and his screenwriting partner, Naben Ruthnum, have projects in development at Oddfellows Entertainment. Visit krisbertin.com.

Kris Bertin's profile page

Alexander Forbes and Kris Bertin 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.

Alexander Forbes' profile page

Jason Fischer-Kouhi is a cartoonist who grew up in Los Angeles and cut his teeth in Portland, Oregon. When he's not coloring Hobtown, he's making his own comics. His favorite color is yellow.

Jason Fischer-Kouhi's profile page

“The Case of the Missing Men is truly a page-turner, with meticulous black-and-white line drawings that are incredibly nuanced and deft at creating suspense.”

<I>The Coast</I>

“From the genre pioneered by The Hardy Boys and perfected by Scooby-Doo, The Hobtown stories clear out a space of their own that distinguishes them as highly original.”

The Comics Beat

“There’s a fullness of vision that makes The Case of the Missing Men so readable and rereadable. There are perfect images in here that will stick with you like scars.”

<I>Bookshelf.ca</I>

“...an exceptional, odd mystery.”

<I>Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)</I>

“This debut would be impressive enough as a mere genre exercise?the perceptive insights into the weirdly hermetic lives of both teenagers and small towns alike, then, are almost a bonus.”

<I>The Globe and Mail</I>

“[A] gritty take on the classic ‘teen sleuth’ genre”

<B>Book Riot</B>

“It’s Bertin’s confident, idiosyncratic tone and Forbes’ small, unnerving, almost Jack Chick–like art that makes this such a weirdly warm-hearted nightmare.”

<I>Booklist</I><span style="font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue&

"I knew I was a goner from the prologue[...] Hobtown Mystery Stories long may it run."

<I>The New York Times</I>

“There’s a fullness of vision that makes The Case of the Missing Men so readable and rereadable. There are perfect images in here that will stick with you like scars.”

<I>Bookshelf.ca</I>

“From the genre pioneered by The Hardy Boys and perfected by Scooby-Doo, The Hobtown stories clear out a space of their own that distinguishes them as highly original.”

The Comics Beat