So pleased to share the official cover for Hobtown Mystery Stories #3 THE SECRET OF THE SAUCER. Feast your eyes below!
Questions to consider:
Who is that Ape Lord?
What’s with the howitzer?
What’s with the masks and mittens?
How lovely of a day is this?
The answers are available this NOVEMBER 2025!
So pleased to report that Hobtown is now in print with ONI PRESS and IN FULL COLOUR! Alex and I are so happy with these editions that feature behind the scenes notes, sketches, maps (and other secrets). They’re available now, and have lots that Hobheads have been asking for: slightly bigger pages, sneak peeks of forthcoming books, and even a CLUE CORNER for the true freaks.
We’re also very nearly finished the follow-up to Hermit, Hobtown III: THE SECRET OF THE SAUCER, which will be out in fall 2025. It’s our most mind-bendingly weird and ambitious story, and I truly can’t wait to share it with you.
To that end, here’s a few exciting panels:
In non-Hobtown news, I’ve completed a novel called THE INVASIONS. I’ll be submitting it to publishers soon (if you’re one of those, contact SAM HAYWOOD at Transatlantic).
This is how I describe it:
After her father is victim of a seemingly random, nonsensical act of violence, Amy returns home to comfort him, only to find herself—and her family—caught up in a storm of paranoia, hatred, and political violence. A meditation on our modern collapse of consensus, the delusional and hypervigilant world of conspiracy, and the corporate takeover of the humanity, The Invasions is a literary thriller about the ways in which our society is losing its collective mind.
Finally, in other news (the kind I never seem to find to talk about), my screenwriting partner Naben Ruthnum and I had our screenplay selected for 2024’s BLACKLIST. Our story ROAD TEST, about a young woman’s run-in with a completely insane driving instructor was voted one of the favourite not-yet-produced screenplays of 2024. When you consider just how many of those there are, it means an awful lot. Cross your fingers for ROAD TEST, which got picked up by Boulderlight Entertainment (of Barbarian fame), and just might become a real movie in the future.
We’ve been miraculously lucky to have found a large audience in France (and Quebec) with our former publisher Pow-Pow (and the magnificent translation work of Alexandre Fontaine Rousseau), and to have had Hobtown gain the attention of Angoulême not once, but twice, getting nominated for the Sélection Fauve Polar SNCF (Favourite Mystery Series) for Hobtown #1 and then the Sélection Officielle for the Grand Prix for Hobtown #2. Alex recently flew to France to attend the festival and came back a changed man, trying to impress upon me how huge comics (BDs) are over there, and how seriously they took our funny little book. I, myself, can hardly believe it.
Now there’s more news from France: Hobtown’s French translations of books 3, 4, and 5 have found a home with Editions Delcourt, a giant in the world of BD (Bande-Dessinées). Delcourt publishes manga, comics and graphic novels, and sells translations of works like Hellboy and Watchmen. To have our work with them is truly an honour, and will mean a dream come true for Alex and I: many more visitors to the coastal paradise of Hobtown!
Pour nos fans Françaises, je dis premièrement je m’excuse pour mon Français terrible, et deuxièmement qu’on travaille fort sur les nouveaux BDs Hobtown. On vous remercier d'avoir lu les autres, et on promît que les romans à venir seront plus étranges, excentriques et palpitants (j’espère).
À bientôt!
KRIS
Very excited to announce that Hobtown Mystery Stories is moving from Conundrum Press to ONI. The decision to change publishers is a tough one, but the opportunity to get Hobtown to a wider audience was one we couldn’t pass up. We’re thrilled to be working with Zack Soto as editor and can’t wait to show you what we’re cooking up.
Alex is currently hard at work on Book Three, and I have a little teaser for the Dana-centric Hobtown Mass-Hysteria UFO Event called THE SECRET OF THE SAUCER.
We’ve signed a three-book deal and are very happy to announce the forthcoming titles along with THE SECRET OF THE SAUCER: Book 4: A JOURNEY INTO THE ABYSS, and 5: THE RETURN OF THE MINI-MAN. Like our other titles, each book is tonally different, focusing on a different character in the main cast, borrowing from vastly different comics and pulp fiction traditions, and delving deeper into the mystery of what, precisely, is wrong with Hobtown.
I hope you’ll join us in endeavouring to find out.
Alex and I have a little story in a new anthology called NOVA GRAPHICA, a wonderful little collection of stories, biography, fibs and tall tales all about Nova Scotia. There’s excellent work from Veronica Post, Rebecca Roher, Paul Hammond, Donnie Calabrese, JJ Steeves, and many more. Our story is called IN THE PRIMEVAL FORESTS OF NOVA SCOTIA, a title borrowed from a line in Mary Fraser’s 1931 Folklore of Nova Scotia, which has long represented a guidebook for the mythology and strangeness of Hobtown Mystery Stories (alongside a few other crucial scotian tomes). If you want to know more about Hobtown’s weirdness—about second sighters and forerunners and wee men— you might consider reading Mrs. Fraser’s book. It’s in the public domain so there’s a great many versions to choose from. Our story features three specific little vignettes from the book, as a tribute to it.
Our contribution to the anthology features some grade-A surrealism from Mr. Forbes, pictured below.
Go to Conundrum Press to order it!
I’m so happy to announce that the new book by myself and my dear friend and illustrator, Alexander Forbes—The Cursed Hermit—is here! The follow-up to our first book in the Hobtown Mystery Stories, The Cursed Hermit attempts to answer one of the unresolved questions from The Case of The Missing Men: why exactly is everyone in Hobtown so out of it?
Our story follows just two of our intrepid young sleuths, Pauline and Brennan, as they’re recruited to attend a winter-break extra credit program at the prestigious Knotty Pines school, a terrifying edifice high above Hobtown, where only the best and brightest are called on to attend. Little do they know, the school itself holds secrets of its own—evil, terrifying secrets! With the help of a ghost and a cantankerous hermit, our heroes go head-to-head against a handful of crazed classmates, their sinister Headmasters, and the centuries-old secret ruler of Hobtown!
WARNING: (MILD) SPOILERS BELOW
If Case of The Missing Men was the weirdo 2-hour pilot, The Cursed Hermit is the first proper episode of Hobtown Mystery Stories, our Christmas episode, and a psychic phantasmagoria, all rolled into one. Focusing on Pauline and her gift of ‘second sight’ lets us get pretty surreal, and including Brennan as her only friendly classmate means we get to have one of his ‘semi-hardboiled’ chapters where he gets to the bottom of things. For those of you wondering if your favourite detective characters—Sam, Dana, or Denny—are involved, the answer is yes, but mostly in a supporting role.
To those disappointed by this news, I’ll say this: there are going to be more Hobtown Mystery Stories, and all of our detectives are going to get their chance at bat! For now, Alex and I thought it was important to try and make a book that was different from the first one, especially in showcasing another part of Hobtown, with a smaller cast, and a few new characters. We were even considering calling this book THE CASE OF THE SOPHOMORE CURSE, but thought better once we got to know our new favourite character, The Hermit.
Talking about themes and subtext can really take away from the magic of a story, so I’ll keep it brief, but we are extremely proud of this book, and especially of its message. Being true to yourself, as an individual—and especially as an artist—is something we both believe in, and having the opportunity to create and share a story where our heroes fight back against dull-eyed conformity, the plague of mediocrity, and the spectre of colonialism means an awful lot to us.
Thank you to everyone who has supported us from our early days to today, Alex and I sincerely appreciate all of you. And thank you, most of all, to Alexander Forbes, my old friend, partner, and illustrator, who makes this story better than it could ever be without him, and who works tirelessly at making Hobtown come to life.
If you’re interested in getting a copy, visit your local bookstore or comic shop. It should be there, and if not, ask them to order it in for you!
We love these characters and this world so much, and it makes us so happy to be able to share a new chapter with you all. Thank you for coming back to Hobtown for a second visit.
My new book of stories USE YOUR IMAGINATION! is being launched APRIL 29th at 1269 Barrington in Halifax! You can BUY the BOOK and HEAR the BOOK! All are welcome!
Very proud to announce that BAD THINGS HAPPEN has won the 2017 ReLit award for Short Fiction! It comes with a ring that will let me spell out various 4-letter words. If you can think of any for me to try out, write them in the comments below.