UFO comic Blue Book: 1947 investigates the origins of the flying saucer

Art from Blue Book: 1947
(Image credit: Dark Horse Comics)

UFOs - sorry, UAP - are so hot right now. Ever since the reveal of the infamous "Tic Tac" video a few years back the conversation around Unidentified Flying Objects has been heated, to say the least. 

Some time ago, horror comic master James Tynion IV and artist Michael Avon Oeming began retelling famous true cases of UFO encounters, first on Tynion IV's Substack and then in the pages of their Dark Horse comic, Blue Book.

A second five-issue run of the title is set to debut in February 2024. Blue Book: 1947 tells a brand new tale set some 14 years before the first volume, which documented Betty and Barney Hill's purported alien abduction. In fact, 1947 is going back to a case that many consider to be the starting point of modern UFOlogy, Kenneth Arnold's sighting near Mount Rainier.

Art from Blue Book: 1947

(Image credit: Dark Horse Comics)

Here's Dark Horse's official synopsis for the first issue.

"In 1947, Kenneth Arnold flew his Call-Air A-2 over the skies of the Pacific Northwest when all of a sudden, he saw a blinding flash of silver light. What followed was a bizarre and difficult to explain encounter with several flying objects that would change the course of his life forever."

In addition to Oeming's cover above there will be six variants. You can check them all out in the gallery below. These are by (from left to right) Fábio Moon, Michael Allred, Cully Hamner, Joe Quinones, Christian Ward, and a foiled version of Oeming's main cover. A further variant will follow in due course. 

Kenneth Arnold's encounter is generally considered to be the first post-World War II UFO sighting. It was this event that led to the terms "flying saucer" and "flying discs" being used frequently in the press and other media. The more famous Roswell incident happened just a month later, cementing 1947 as the year of the UFO.

Blue Book: 1947 #1 is written by Tynion, illustrated by Oeming, and lettered by Tom Napolitano. It will also include a True Weird backup story by Zac Thompson, Gavin Fullerton, and Aditya Bidikar. 

Blue Book: 1947 #1 is published by Dark Horse Comics on February 7, 2024.


James Tynion IV has written some of the best horror comics of all time.

Will Salmon
Comics Editor

Will Salmon is the Comics Editor for GamesRadar/Newsarama. He has been writing about comics, film, TV, and music for more than 15 years, which is quite a long time if you stop and think about it. At Future he has previously launched scary movie magazine Horrorville, relaunched Comic Heroes, and has written for every issue of SFX magazine for over a decade. He sometimes feels very old, like Guy Pearce in Prometheus. His music writing has appeared in The Quietus, MOJO, Electronic Sound, Clash, and loads of other places and he runs the micro-label Modern Aviation, which puts out experimental music on cassette tape.

Read more
Hooky looks up on one of the variant covers for Dark Pyramid #1.
New horror comic Dark Pyramid looks like a Lovecraftian thriller featuring "the oddest monsters and weirdest creatures"
best Tom Cruise movie moments
The team behind Top Gun: Maverick are reuniting for a new UFO conspiracy thriller
Blood and her gun on the cover of Blood & Thunder #1.
Invincible and Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman's new comic Blood & Thunder looks like Blade Runner with a talking gun
The SilverHawks line up.
39 years after its final animated episode, cult cartoon SilverHawks is back in a new comic that writer Ed Brisson calls "The Untouchables in space"
Godzilla blasts some planes and choppers.
Godzilla in space! IDW reveals its new shared comics universe starring the King of the Monsters
Batman, Superman, and...?
DC's 2025 Free Comic Book Day plans include a preview of Superman Unlimited and the first appearance of a mysterious new Absolute Universe character
Latest in Comics
Nova's helmet sitting among rubble
Jonathan Hickman will "revolutionize Marvel's galactic canon" in a new event that brings in the Hulks, Black Panther, Nova, and more
Sonic and the Flash racing over water
We'll finally learn if Sonic is faster than the Flash as Sega's famous hedgehog and pals team up with the Justice League in a new mash-up comic
The New Thunderbolts leaping into action
Marvel's New Thunderbolts* comic steals the MCU's asterisk, and the reason why is just as big of a mystery
Web of Venomverse: Fresh Brains #1
Meet the Venomouse, an all new Eddie Brock, and more in Web of Venomverse: Fresh Brains #1
Superman surrounded by the exploding Krypton.
Absolute Superman #5 puts a devastating new spin on the Man of Steel's origin story
Ms. Marvel alongside the mutants of Age of Apocalypse
30 years after the original Age of Apocalypse, Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan will travel to the alt-reality to save X-Men history
Latest in News
First Berserker: Khazan screenshot showing two characters engaged in battle
Compare it to FromSoftware all you want, but the devs on this extremely promising hardcore action RPG say they're making "more than just a Soulslike"
Old School RuneScape Smite collab
MMO scholar puts a $500 bounty on old versions of RuneScape as part of a community archive project: "You might have ALL of the game's lost versions!"
Khazan holding a red glowing sword during the upcoming PS5 game, The First Berserker: Khazan.
"Games are meant to be engaging, not exhausting": Lead dev on promising Soulslike RPG pushes balanced difficulty because "if stress keeps piling up without relief, players will eventually want to quit"
A meeting inside one of Chrono Cross' cathedrals
There's never been a better time to play Chrono Trigger than on its 30th anniversary as the all-time JRPG great is just $4 in Steam Spring Sale
The Surrender
The Boys star's new horror movie gets great first reactions calling it "truly terrifying" featuring some of the "best performances" of 2025 so far
Ender Magnolia screenshot showing a spirit shooting at a monster enemy
One of the best new Metroidvanias just got a huge update with New Game+ and heaps more content like a boss rush mode