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The Graphic Lives of Fathers pp 157–181Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

“Emasculated by the diaper bag”: Aging, Masculinity, and Fatherhood in Joe Ollmann’s Mid-Life

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels ((PSCGN))

Abstract

Canadian cartoonist Joe Ollmann’s semi-autobiographical book-length comic Mid-Life is a cranky but insightful meditation on aging and fatherhood, but also the manner in which its many demands can negatively affect one’s self-perception, creativity, and relationships. Father of two adult daughters and one baby boy with his much younger wife, the main character fixates on signs of decrepitude he thinks he notices in his early 40s, his dwindling level of attractiveness to the opposite sex, as well as his mediocre job. Fatherhood is introduced as a complicated role that can both build character and ruin it, but always impacts the narrator’s performance of masculinity. In this chapter, I argue that the self-loathing rhetoric and aesthetic of the book undermines the narrator’s negative perception of fatherhood and the grotesque self-representation works well to show the qualities and limitations of John’s involvement as a father.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Heer traces the low mimetic comic tradition to Hogarth, but more recently to Robert Crumb’s Fritz the Cat comics, Gilbert Shelton’s Freak Brothers, Peter Bagge’s Buddy Bradley series, and other work by the Hernandez Brothers and Daniel Clowes.

  2. 2.

    According to Ollmann’s “Notes,” included at the end of the book, the story is fictional.

  3. 3.

    One point the author insists on making at the end is the fact that, even if he was indeed—in real life—fired from his job as an art director at a yoga magazine, that was not (as in John Olsen’s case) for incompetence, but because of a magazine-wide decision to let all male employees go during what he calls “the penis purge of 2007” (Ollmann 2011a). This clarification emphasizes the importance of Ollmann’s professional reputation and invites readers to understand the main character’s incompetence—as well as other related features—as a conceit.

  4. 4.

    In an interview with Chris Mautner, Ollmann explains the deliberate choice of his page structure: “What I hope is that the uniformity of the frame is so ubiquitous that the reader eventually forgets it and just concentrates fully on the narrative” (Ollmann 2011b).

  5. 5.

    The preface does not make a point of identifying and delimiting fact from fiction; instead, it openly states that the book contains a combination of both: “This is largely a work of fiction, except where it isn’t. Please see the notes for even less clarification. If, after reading this book, you find yourself asking: why would a man draw himself in his underpants so often and reveal fictionalized tidbits of his life in cartoon form? I can only respond that (…) I still believe some things are universal truths and hold that, yes, those truths may include drawing oneself in one’s underpants. Oh, and also, that some of those truths are fictions” (Ollmann 2011a).

  6. 6.

    The skull is a recurrent image throughout the book. It is either visible as a ring on Olsen’s finger (a reminder of the autobiographical connection to Ollmann himself, who also wears a skull-shaped ring) or strategically placed in the background, to add a note of morbidity to the main subject of panels. The skull is not only a memento mori (in which capacity it also appears, for instance, in a short story from Chewing on Tinfoil , titled “Death wears inexpensive loafers”), but also as a fashion accessory that links the character to rock culture, suggesting perhaps an earlier period of non-conformity. Both interpretations coalesce in one panel where John Olsen hugs a bottle of “liquor” during the “five-year breakdown” that followed the end of his first marriage; in the background, behind Olsen’s own dark-circled skull-like head, floating skulls suggest that he is engaging in potentially suicidal behaviour.

  7. 7.

    This dichotomy is forced and not supported by the biographical data provided by the narrator himself. While he claims that he had his first daughter at seventeen, the four-year age difference between his daughters would place him at twenty-one by the time his second child is born. Still, he always refers to himself as a “teenage” father for that portion of his life, and in one panel even draws himself holding two similarly aged screaming swaddled babies in each arm (Ollmann 2011a, 113).

  8. 8.

    This short script is an important illustration women’s “mental load,” as evinced by the viral webcomic I briefly discuss in Chapter I, “You Should’ve Asked,” by French cartoonist Emma (2017).

  9. 9.

    The Sherri Smalls episode may not include de facto adultery, but it is a boost to the narrator’s fragile ego, since he admits that what he desires is merely to be offered the opportunity to be adulterous: “I don’t want to euphemistically ‘sleep’ with any of these women. I guess I’d just like it if one of them would actually consider euphemistically sleeping with me. Oh, yea, plus, I’m happily married. Sheesh, what a kook!” (Ollmann 2011a, 43).

  10. 10.

    See the author’s bio, the dedication of the book to his wife, two daughters, and one son, all of whom have different names but bear a striking likeness to their counterparts in the book (Ollmann 2011a).

  11. 11.

    It is only when the characters experience strong emotions that the background darkens completely, and their extremely expressive faces show what they are feeling.

  12. 12.

    Carol Tyler’s work contains other similar images of maternity. “The Outrage,” another short story from the Late Bloomer collection, is a nightmarish self-representation as a murderous and suicidal devil in the throes of post-partum depression. In Soldier’s Heart (2015), we see Carol writhing in agony during prolonged labor, under her own mother’s horrified stare. Together, these images produce a counter-narrative to the writing of childbirth and motherhood as ultimate fulfillment and instant joy.

  13. 13.

    Not even when he expresses love is Ollmann’s pen forgiving of Olsen; even when he mourns the death of their beloved cat Zooey he is unforgivingly represented as grotesque rather than touching.

  14. 14.

    It is difficult to assess how Olsen and his first wife may have shared their parental duties, since she is almost completely erased in this book. Her image appears to have been burned off in a family photograph of the four of them, she is rarely mentioned and never visually represented, like all the other minor and major characters. This is motivated by the fact that the couple had a bitter break-up. Because of the decision not to represent her, Olsen appears to have been a single father, even though he was also working full time: “It’s only ever the three of us in memory” (Ollmann 2011a, 58). This is also a conceit that acts as compensation for what Olsen himself qualifies as sub-par post-divorce paternal conduct.

  15. 15.

    John Olsen’s expression of regret is at its most emphatic when he remembers his behavior after his divorce, when he was not emotionally available to his daughters. In an uncharacteristically effusive tone, he calls them “the poor things, my dear baby girls” (Ollmann 2011a, 57), in a profession of regret that is undermined by a portrait of post-divorce Olsen, “newly buff and wearing girlfriend’s T-shirt,” but also sporting hair colored by “midlife crisis blonde #22” (Ollmann 2011a, 57).

  16. 16.

    There is one panel where he gently and protectively hugs his son, who is strapped in his baby carrier, and states his determination that he will do “everything right this time” (Ollmann 2011a, 58).

  17. 17.

    At the end of the book Ollmann reproduces a request form for a vasectomy, dated August 26, 2006 and corrected by a caption that explains that, “as of this writing, in 2010, I’m still firing ‘live ammunition,’ ladies and gentlemen…but, please, spay and neuter your pets!” (Ollmann 2011a). This note is a commentary on the ambivalence about further procreation expressed throughout the book.

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  1. English Department, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Bucharest, Romania

    Mihaela Precup

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Correspondence to Mihaela Precup .

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Precup, M. (2020). “Emasculated by the diaper bag”: Aging, Masculinity, and Fatherhood in Joe Ollmann’s Mid-Life. In: The Graphic Lives of Fathers. Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36218-8_7

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