Being a lover of the mystery and thriller genres, Hobtown Mystery Stories Volume 1: The Case of The Missing Men, a story about teen detectives, murder and all things grisly was immediately added to my TBR list upon its publication in April 2024. Written and illustrated by childhood friends Kris Bertin and Alexander Forbes, and published by Oni Press, this unconventional drama is part of an ongoing series. It looks set to take the world of graphic novels by storm, with Volume 2 due to be published in November of this year. Interestingly, Hobtown was originally published in black-and-white by Conundrum Press in 2017 – let’s see if this new, coloured issue embellished by Jason Fischer-Kouhi is worth investing in.
Welcome to Hobtown, a small, remote village on the east coast of Nova Scotia, where nothing out of the ordinary ever happens (according to its adult residents). Set in the 90s and illustrated in a style reminiscent of classic series like Nancy Drew, Archie Comics and the Hardy Boys, the story follows a group of young teens in an amateur detective club, who are investigating the bizarre occurrences in Hobtown that adults don’t seem to notice (or just don’t seem to care about). The mystery begins when, as the title implies, a man goes missing. The reader gets only a brief snapshot of the event; as an unknown man is driving along, fire prevents his car from travelling any further, and he is suddenly assaullted by a group of people in masks. Styled in a childlike nature and made from paper plates, the masks feature infantile scribbles of dog faces and leaves falling from a tree, evoking a deep feeling of uneasiness.
New boy Sam is set to shake things up, however, when he arrives at Hobtown’s local high school; his father is missing, and he’s not willing to let it drop. Reluctantly teaming up with teen detective Dana Nance and her crew, tensions begin to boil due to Sam’s arrogant tendencies. Yet, Sam soon realises he has quite the penchant for mystery-solving himself and gets more involved with the crew, revealing that his father is the sixth person to go missing in Hobtown this year alone. There is a cyclical pattern that keeps occurring – all the missing people have been in their early 50s, single and male. It seems that this isn’t the first time something of this nature has happened in Hobtown, as the group become embroiled in its dark history…
Typical of the thriller genre, the lines between fiction and reality are often blurred, but what stands out here is Forbes’ and Fisher-Koul’s quite literal interpretation of this, with hallucination/dream sequences taking on more dramatic hues like stark red and orange, or being mostly blurry, with eerie text peeping through. The art style is detailed throughout, with gritty, crosshatched, noir-style sketching that works perfectly for a murder mystery. The linographic elements, shading, colouring and even the lettering work together to give the comic a real nostalgic feel, especially to those who grew up on classic teen detective fiction (the cover itself being a fantastic homage to classic Nancy Drew adventures). A great way to keep the reader on edge. Even when there’s no gore or gristle, most characters are drawn slightly grotesquely, unnerving the reader just enough to give them a sense of uncanniness and unease about Hobtown.
However, not all of Hobtown Mystery Stories Vol. 1 is hallucinations, darkness and gore; at the very heart of the graphic novel are the group of friends who support and risk their lives for each other, over and over again. The exposition needed for character growth is scattered in small fragments of conversation and illustrations throughout, and for the patient reader, the titbits we learn about each of the main characters make their sleuthing successes all the more satisfying. The characters themselves also become more fleshed out by Fischer-Kouhi’s fantastic use of colouring; compared with the purely black and white illustrations from the 2017 publication, this reprint brings the characters, the bloodshed, and the creepy town to life in muted pastels, with more vibrant reds and yellows used to highlight particularly dramatic moments. Not only does the subtle colouring invoke a feeling of an old-timey town stuck in its ways but it manages to conjure the look and feel of classic murder mysteries.
Hobtown Mystery Stories really stayed true to the classic teen detective format, and paid homage to the genre; Chief detective Dana Nance is inspired and named after ‘The Dana Girls’, boarding school sleuths from the 1930s series, as well as girl-detective figurehead Nancy Drew. Yellow raincoats, evidence maps, small-town mysteries and a rag-town group of teens banding together are more classic tropes of the genre, while the glassy-eyed look from the adults, who are non-plussed by the violence happening around them and can’t see any oddities, is reminiscent of Derry in Stephen King’s It. It seems literature is having somewhat of a detective fiction renaissance, with the resurgence of teen detective fiction like One of Us is Lying and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder; paving the way forward for its revival in graphic novels is Hobtown Mystery Stories. Bring on Volume 2!
Kris Bertin (W), Alexander Forbes (A/L), Jason Fischer-Kouhi (C), Zack Soto & Bess Pallares (E) • Oni Press, $24.99
Review by Lydia Turner
