But it’s also present in his art, which boasts a scruffy, craggy line that leaves no forehead unwrinkled, no skin unblotched, seemingly declaring to the world “Life isn’t tidy, so why should my art be?” It’s there foremost in his writing, which avoids hot takes and quick judgements and refuses to let any of his characters (or readers for that matter) get off easy. This gets to the heart of Ollmann’s storytelling powers: his ability to conjure the ragged humanity in each his characters regardless of their tax bracket or socio-economic status. And yet, there wasn’t one panel in the book’s 212 pages that I wasn’t rooting for the son of a bitch.
And he’s also neglecting his relationships with his long-suffering mother and his patient, doting husband.
Take Caleb Wyatt, the protagonist of Ollmann’s latest graphic novel Fictional Father, an entitled middle-aged struggling artist and recovering addict who when we meet him is living off the not-so-goodwill of his ludicrously wealthy father, a successful cartoonist who he-of course-loathes. Whether it’s the beautiful-sad short stories in his Doug Wright Award-winning This Will All End in Tears in 2006, the blundering semi-autobiographical protagonist in his first graphic novel Mid-Life in 2011, or his 2017 biography of the notoriously self-destructive wild man William Seabrook, Joe can’t shake his affinity for the messy struggles of real people. In the 33 years since, Ollmann’s working-class origins have served as his creative gravity, grounding his best work in a palpable reality. It’s a pedigree that the cartoonist has worn on his ink-stained sleeve since he began his professional career in 1988 with the self-published Dirty Nails Comics (the title of which your Honor, I submit as Exhibit A). No, these are not lyrics from an obscure Merle Haggard song, but rather evidence of Joe Ollmann’s blue-collar bonafides. Born the youngest of six in the tenacious steel town of Hamilton Ontario (aka “The Hammer”), he was raised on a rural Christmas tree farm and at the age of 17 started working the night shift in a box factory to support his wife and young daughter. Let me tell you a little something about a guy named Joe.
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