Review by Frank Plowright

The opening of My Dad Fights Demons asks if there’s a good time to be told your estranged father is Mr. Mantrix, Earth’s protector keeping the world safe from supernatural invasions? If there is, it’s probably not when you’re sitting on the toilet getting rid of last night’s broccoli burger. It speaks to serious eccentricity on the part of Rye’s mother and stepfather. After years of never knowing his birth father, Rye is told he’s meeting him the next day and spending the weekend with him. It doesn’t go well.

My Dad Fights Demons combines comedy with points Bobby Joseph wants to make about society in the UK in 2025. He’s spot on with most comments, and provides some funny pastiches, such as the social media influencer forever dropping hashtag statements. However, a manual on proper behaviour and social ills doesn’t always sit well alongside the slapstick of an embarrassing parent dragging their unwilling son around. That’s serviced by Rye having to prod his idle and shiftless father into doing the right thing using his magical abilities. It’s rather stitched together as a long shaggy dog story as they leap between dimensions.

Based on cartooning ability alone Abbigayle Bircham is a talent with an attractive style that’s funny in capturing and exaggerating emotions. That, though, needs to be allied with far greater imagination when it comes to telling a story. Despite the energy and brightness the pages largely consist of only figures laid over colour backgrounds with no great sense of composition.

It’s all deliberately silly, and there are laughs to be had from an ever-shifting script, but maybe not as many as you’d want. Mind you, Gobby the Goblin’s guide to UK slang once the story’s over does have a high hit rate.