Review by Ian Keogh

Cat’s father Dale “Dukes” Duquesne is an ice-hockey player, good enough to star for a secondary team, but despite her faith he’s convinced he’s not a major league talent. While Cat’s spending time providing detailed reports of his upcoming opposition, she’s flunking her school tests. It turns out, though, that there’s a different reason Dukes is not a major leaguer, which comes as a shock to Cat and a surprise to readers: he hunts monsters. Don’t worry, the revelation is dropped early, so it’s not a major spoiler.

It’s rather the contrivance that Cat refers to the device he uses to trap them as the Sin Bin, the sealed off area of a hockey stadium where players serve timed absences for infractions, but the title works for Robbie Thompson’s supernatural action fantasy. There’s a need to suspend disbelief at the amount of monsters no-one else knows about, and at the convenience of Dukes drip-feeding information to Cat prompting story elements, although young readers may not pick up on that.

In tapping into that Stranger Things vibe of children endangered by the supernatural, The Sin Bin’s entire premise is somewhat compromised, but two early factors lift it above just going through the motions. The first is Cat’s tenacious personality, delivered by her handwritten narrative captions, and the second is the magnificent rich art supplied by Patricio Delpeche. Imagination, character and thought are evident on every well laid out and detailed page, which is topped off by a well considered use of colour and light. Delpeche also captures the intensity of the sport, which many comic artists can’t manage.

Thompson has his tongue in his cheek when it comes to the phrases the monsters use for their hunters’ tools of the trade, but has plotted well, which becomes more and more apparent as The Sin Bin continues. It develops into a real page-turner taking an unpredictable path with Cat’s stubborness and persistence saving the day.