A dysfunctional family lives in the shadow of a world famous comic strip and its tyrannical creator
Caleb is a middle-aged painter with a non-starter career. He also happens to be the only child of one of the world’s most famous cartoonists, Jimmi Wyatt. Known for the internationally beloved father and son comic Sonny Side Up, Jimmi made millions drawing saccharine family stories while neglecting his own son.
Now sober, Caleb is haunted by his wasted past and struggling to take responsibility for his present before it’s too late. His always patient boyfriend, James, is reaching the end of his rope. When Caleb gets the chance to step out from his father’s shadow and shape the most public aspect of the family business, he makes every bad decision and watches his life fall apart. Is it too late to repair the harm? Are we forever doomed to make the same mistakes our parents did?
Joe Ollmann is a master at portraying inner torment. His characters vacillate and sob and rage. His furrow-browed and deeply-lined cartooning has never been more expressive than in Fictional Father. Caleb storms around and slumps in equal measure as he tries to figure out who he is beyond the neglected son of a famous man. In addition to being a devastating portrait of the Wyatt family, Fictional Father is a hilariously sardonic interrogation of art-making and cartooning in particular.

Joe Ollmann lives in Hamilton, the Riviera of Southern Ontario. He is the winner of the Doug Wright Award for Best Book in 2007 and loser of the same award many other times. Author of 7 books, Chewing On Tinfoil (Insomniac, 2001), The Big Book of Wag! (Conundrum, 2006), This Will All End in Tears (Insomniac, 2006, Winner of the 2007 Doug Wright Award for best book), Mid-Life! (Drawn and Quarterly, 2011), Science Fiction (Conundrum, 2013), Happy stories About Well-Adjusted People (Conundrum, 2014) and The Abominable Mr. Seabrook (Drawn and Quarterly, 2017). CBC Radio has said of him "Joe Ollmann is to graphic novels what Alice Munro is to fiction: a master of the short story form."

Joe Ollmann's profile page

Joe Ollmann is the cartoonist’s cartoonist. —The Toronto Star

Though no one does galumphing human failure better than Ollmann, thankfully his tongue is also ever in his cheek. —Rachel Cooke, The Guardian Best Graphic Novels of 2021

Ollmann is a master craftsman who has given us a mid-pandemic treat in Fictional Father. He is an artist at the height of his powers... —London Free Press

Are we destined to turn into our parents?... This is the central theme of Ollmann’s book and one our hero must wrestle with until the ultimately life-affirming final pages. Before he arrives at his destination though Cal must run a gauntlet of indignities, humiliations, heartbreaks, and poor decisions (many of his own making), but thanks to Ollmann’s confident, assured storytelling it’s a journey well-worth taking. —The Comics Journal

Intergenerational angst and imposter syndrome feature in this tragicomic memoir by Caleb, a middle-aged recovering alcoholic and painter who inherits his late cartoonist father’s syrupy but hugely popular newspaper strip based on a father-son relationship nothing like their own. Features cameos by Canadian comic luminaries Seth and Chester Brown. —The Globe and Mail

Readers—especially those with a keen interest in the history and mechanics of comics—will appreciate Ollmann's formal playfulness and emotional honesty. —Shelf Awareness

Ollmann... has been a well-kept secret of comics for too long. Hopefully, this will blow his cover.
—Booklist, Starred Review

Ollmann’s true talent is drawing and painting faces that demand attention. —Literary Review of Canada

Ollmann’s funny, faux-meta memoir… is a complex look at an artist’s evolving relationship to the past. — Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

Joe Ollmann is a master at blending comedy and empathy in stories about mid-life ennui.
—Quill & Quire, 2021 Spring Preview

Fictional Father explores family, regret and what it means to make art. —CBC Books

Ollmann explores dysfunctional family dynamics and the sometimes complex motivations behind artistic expression with incredible empathy. An absorbing, enthralling work.
—Library Journal, Starred Review

There is such a pleasurable discomfort in reading Joe Ollmann's blundering-heart characters. They are resentful, petulant, ashamed, earnest, contradictory—eternally their own worst enemies. In other words, they are us. Fictional Father does not miss a single wrinkle.
—Hartley Lin, cartoonist of Young Frances and Pope Hats

I love Joe Ollmann. His stories are page-turners, gut busters and tear jerkers. He’s the last of the great funny/sad underground cartoonists. A National Treasure.
—Seth, Clyde Fans

Are we destined to turn into our parents?... This is the central theme of Ollmann’s book and one our hero must wrestle with until the ultimately life-affirming final pages. Before he arrives at his destination though Cal must run a gauntlet of indignities, humiliations, heartbreaks, and poor decisions (many of his own making), but thanks to Ollmann’s confident, assured storytelling it’s a journey well-worth taking. —The Comics Journal

Portraying the aimless, alcoholic son of an aloof, philandering cartoonist, Ollmann blends jovial grotesquerie with a surprising generosity of spirit. —The Globe and Mail, Best Books of 2021

Don't worry, my father is not really like this. —Sam Ollmann-Chan

[Joe Ollmann is] Canada’s master of humorous discomfort. —Toronto Life