While at college in Manchester Dakin was drawing Abe for his college magazine when he met Paul Gravett, who introduced him to the concept of self-publishing comics in zine form and distributing them via the mail and Gravett's Fast Fiction service.
[citation needed] Dakin has cited Tove Jansson's Moomin strip cartoons and novels as an influence for Abe and the optimistic melancholy present in his work.
Temptation, "which was visually inspired by George Herriman's Krazy Kat and Johnny Hart's B.C.,"[1] had a run in Escape, and found a home in Deadline magazine.
Dakin was employed by Marvel UK for a period where he wrote the comics ClanDestine and The Real Ghostbusters amongst others.
Dakin has been cited by a number of American cartoonists, especially those connected to the publisher Highwater Books, as a major influence on their attitudes towards comics.