A humourous fantasy webcomic hosted on The Duck, written and drawn by Gareth Paul Barsby of The Otherworld Anthology. It revolves around Daryl, a dragon who has the unfortunate condition of a hole in his head, where monsters created from his mind come out during his more emotional moments. He picked up the confition when he lived in the magical land of Kirkalan, working as a guardian to the Big Bad Aosoth. Gaining this condition made him realise how wrong he was to follow Aosoth, so after Aosoth was defeated, he moved to Britain to start afresh, even adopting a daughter named Susie. He still has to deal with his head monsters though, and the comic documents how he tries to live a normal life while living with his past and his condition.
The comic used to update weekly, with 'episodes' round about five pages or more. It can be read here
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In 2017, a Novelization of the comic (mostly adapting the Back to the Past and Return of Aosoth stories) was released online: Daryl and Denise. Yes, Susie was Adapted Out.
Daryl and Susie contains examples of:
- Aosoth and Bob: Kirkalan has Aosoth, Coover, Codd and Gangrene, but also has Daryl, Denise, Bob and Gary.
- Captain Ersatz: Quite a few of these, especially in Kirkalan. Coover is pretty similar to Eragon and Link, with his companion wizard Gangrene being obviously based on Gandalf. Other stories feature ersatz versions of the Joker and other Gotham villains and, of all characters, Dr Doofenshmirtz and Perry the Platypus.
- Halloween Episode: 'Halloween: Regurgitation', a very loose parody of Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth.
- Perspective Flip: A typical Heroic Fantasy story told from the perspective of one of the villain's Mooks. This element is a bit more prevalent in the novelisation.
- Shout-Out: Quite a few.
- Susie is seen watching parodies of Men Behaving Badly and Mongrels, before Daryl suggests 'Happy Green Dinosaur'.
- Coover at one time says 'Excuse me, princess!'
- For Halloween, Susie dresses as Claudia from Interview with the Vampire.
- Daryl once ends up laughing at Normal Programme.
- Signature Style: Gareth's stories tend to have lots of weirdness, insanity and warped versions of children's stories and this is no exception. Though it is Lighter and Softer than most of his other works.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Daryl can go out in public without his draconic appearance frightening anyone.
- Villain Team-Up: Aosoth attempts one of these. It doesn't work. Though her team-up with the Mayor of Daryl's head was a bit more successful. At least it seemed that way.
- Webcomic Time: 'Happy Hatch-Day, Dear Daryl' apparently takes place the day after 'We All Scream', but the comics were released a week apart.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: In the final arc, Denise tells Coover to help her fight the Mayor's army. He is never seen doing that, and never appears after that scene.
- What the Hell, Hero?: How Denise acts towards Daryl when they first meet, and the entire schtick of a voice in Daryl's head.
