The era where fictional kids continually idolized their fictional parents is long gone. Today’s kids realize their parents are often flawed 
individuals, often needing the kids’ advice on life, even as many of these kids don’t realize their own flaws. Such a dynamic may not generate familial bliss but they do create good conflict for stories, especially when that parent has a secret life (an interesting and action-packed secret life) that the kid doesn’t know about. Such is the setup of The Sin Bin, written by former “Supernatural” writer Robbie Thompson and illustrated by Patricio Delpeche. The Sin Bin is a charming, monster-bashing good time about a girl and her hockey playing, monster hunting father.
That monster hunting father is Dale “Dukes” Duquesne, a hockey player who’s on the tail end of his career and bouncing from one minor hockey team to another, but his daughter Cat, his biggest supporter and giver of unsolicited advice, believes that he’s just one good game away from the majors. However, young Cat makes a discovery about how her dad spends his time off the ice. It turns out he hunts ghosts and monsters and banishes them to a dimension known as the Sin Bin. Cat soon wants to join the family business, even if she doesn’t realize the danger involved.
Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a television show that artfully straddled the line between horror and humor, should find Cat an interesting heroine. Thompson consistently makes her the book’s emotional center as well as the POV character responsible for how the audience sees this world of fighting monsters, fights at school, and living in hotel after hotel. Fortunately, Cat has enough pluck and determination to deserve her spot as the book’s main character even as Thompson explores the sometimes fraught yet somehow deep bonds between parent and child.
People who remember Buffy the Vampire Slayer might remember the violence Buffy dishes out while serving as the Slayer. However, the book’s aesthetic as constructed by artist Delpeche, focuses more on the action elements than the horror. There are plenty of things here with tentacles and sharp teeth but they’re drawn in a way that’s meant to excite rather than horrify. Rather than spend time illustrating Junji Ito-inspired horrors, Delpeche saves his talents for character design, allowing them to express a plethora of emotions that readers can see and experience.
Clearly written for younger (and older) teen audiences, this book has just enough horror not to be horrifying, and teen librarians with patrons who love Supernatural, Stranger Things, or other series featuring monster fights will be happy to find a monster fighter as relatable as Cat. While hardcore horror fans might not find this scary, this book still excels at being a breezy, fun fight with monsters that never loses its heart.
The Sin Bin
By Robbie Thompson
Art by Patricio Delpeche
IDW, 2025
ISBN: 9798887241678
Company Age Rating:Â 13-17 years
NFNT Age Recommendation: Teen (13-16)
Creator Representation:Â Argentinian,
