His main character Caleb, however, feels entirely lived in, approached with an impressive and almost admirable degree of empathy, so much so that the way Ollmann writes all his behaviors (even those that are a bit unscrupulous or even cringy) is entirely earnest. As detailed in some of his earlier works, Ollmann actually comes from a blue collar background. Ollmann is, of course, not the lone scion of a famous cartoonist, nor did he grow up privileged and wanting for nothing.
Ollmann himself shares little to nothing in common with his main character, aside perhaps for some of his experiences with operating in comics, at least not on any sort of surface level. But Fictional Father by Joe Ollman handles it all well, and the result is a complex, compulsively readable, and very humane deep dive into this protagonist’s psyche, a deep dive so thorough it finds that rarefied space of universality.įictional Father just works, and it works very well. That’s a lot for one book - even one that clocks in at 200+ pages like this one - to tackle. He’s also selfish like his father, and we see this played out in his flagging relationship with his patient, doting husband. He’s an alcoholic with some of his father’s artistic talents, yet he has never quite gotten his creative footing under him, not in any sort of meaningful way. The protagonist, meanwhile, is a rich kid, the only son of this famous cartoonist, and he’s had some problems in his life.
The protagonist’s father is known affectionately as everybody’s dad, held up as a paragon of nurturing fatherly virtue. The book contextualizes just how famous this cartoonist is - not Charles Schultz famous, but close enough to know all prominent cartoonist and many celebrities - and how his strip has impacted the wider world. Ollman’s main character in this book, Caleb Wyatt, is the son of a famous newspaper cartoonist, whose life’s work is an old-fashioned strip about a father and son. By Zack Quaintance - The premise of Joe Ollman’s new graphic novel Fictional Father - published in May by Drawn & Quarterly - is a rich one.
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