Panel Discussion

Caleb Wyatt is a middle-aged painter and recovering alcoholic looking for a break. His dad, Jimmi, is the millionaire creator of the world-famous comic strip Sonny Side Up, about an endearing father-son relationship. In truth, Jimmi is a narcissistic, money-obsessed jerk who cheats on his wife and resents Caleb’s existence; nevertheless, he dreams of his son taking over the strip one day. Joe Ollmann’s Fictional Father is a wild tale, one in which the hero tries to overcome addiction, career failure, and generational trauma with the help of his mother, his boyfriend, and various Sonny Side Up sycophants.

This is a book by a visual artist about a failed visual artist, who lives in the shadow of a successful one. But in many ways it is also an essay on the significance of comics (Ollmann literally redraws classic examples throughout to make various claims about the...