Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario. Hamilton has a 2021 Canadian census, population of 569,353 (2021), and its Census Metropolitan Area, census metropolitan area, which encompasses ...
) is a
Canadian
Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...
cartoonist
A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...
. Ollmann's cartooning style has been described as "scratchy angular angry big steaming slice-of-life comics” and the cartoonist
Seth
Seth, in the Abrahamic religions, was the third son of Adam and Eve. The Hebrew Bible names two of his siblings (although it also states that he had others): his brothers Cain and Abel. According to , Seth was born after Abel's murder by Cain, ...
has called Ollmann “one of our medium’s great writers.”
Ollmann grew up on a Christmas tree farm near Hamilton, Ontario and self-published his first 3-issue comic book series, ''Dirty Nails Comics'', beginning in 1988. He contributed cartoons to
The Hamilton Spectator
''The Hamilton Spectator'', founded in 1846, is a newspaper published weekdays and Saturdays in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. One of the largest Canadian newspapers by circulation, ''The Hamilton Spectator'' is owned by Torstar.
History
''The Ha ...
in the early 1990s, and had a long-running strip in
Exclaim!
''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly ''Exclaim!'' print magazine publishes seven ...
magazine. He began publishing short comics stories in his own self-published anthology series ''Wag!'' in 1991, continuing for 9 issues to 2004 and compiled in ''The Big Book of Wag!'' (Conundrum Press, 2005).
Insomniac Press
Insomniac Press was a Canadian independent book publisher.
Founded in 1992 and based in London, Ontario, Insomniac began as a publisher of poetry chapbooks. The company has since evolved into a publisher of a wide variety of fiction, poetry and no ...
published his first original collection of short stories in 2002 as ''Chewing on Tinfoil''.
Comics
Ollmann's third collection of short stories, ''This Will All End in Tears'' ( Conundrum Press, 2006) won the
Doug Wright Award
The Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning (established in December 2004) are literary awards handed out annually since 2005 during the Toronto Comic Arts Festival to Canadian cartoonists honouring excellence in comics (including webcomics) ...
for Best Book, bringing praise from critics: "What contradictions, what energy, what tension, what struggle, what humour, what characters!" said writer Judy MacDonald, speaking on behalf of the five-member Wright Award jury. Ollman's collection transport readers "into cramped and messy living rooms where we discard ourselves and want to stay," she said. "These stories and characters aren't tidy. The ends aren't tidy. Life, fear isn't tidy," she said. "Art doesn't have to be tidy either."
Drawn & Quarterly
Drawn & Quarterly (D+Q) is a publishing company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, specializing in comics. It publishes primarily comic books, graphic novels and comic strip collections. The books it publishes are noted for their artistic con ...
published Ollmann's first graphic novel ''Mid-Life'' in 2011. The semi-autobiographical book follows a hapless version of Ollmann as he pursues an affair with a children's music performer. In a
National Post
The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper and the flagship publication of the American-owned Postmedia Network. It is published Mondays through Saturdays, with Monday released as a digital e-edition only.
review, critic
Jeet Heer
Jeet Heer is a Canadian author, comics critic, literary critic and journalist. He is a national affairs correspondent for ''The Nation'' magazine and a former staff writer at ''The New Republic''. The publications he has written for include '' The ...
praised the book, remarking that, "The great strength of Mid-Life is Ollmann’s art, which might at a quick glance look unappetizing. He draws with a gnarly, blunt line and his characters have a misshapen, antagonizing appearance. Yet their ungainly surface is a perfect mirror for their messy lives. Rarely are form and content so aptly aligned in a comic book. Mid-Life is a superb graphic novel, by turns hilarious and appalling.” The book was nominated for a Wright Award in the Best Book category.
In 2017, Drawn & Quarterly published Ollmann's first sustained work of non-fiction, ''The Abominable Mr. Seabrook'', a graphic biography of the writer
William Seabrook
William Buehler Seabrook (February 22, 1884 – September 20, 1945) was an American occultist, explorer, world traveler, journalist and author, born in Westminster, Maryland. He began his career as a reporter and city editor of the ''Augusta Ch ...
. The book received generally positive notices, with a reviewer for Publishers Weekly noting, "Seabrook is just the sort of character that Ollmann is so good at rendering: a complicated, misunderstood, and underappreciated mess of a person whose life was fascinating and whose appetites were, quite literally, as strange as they come. As both a narrative and a story in pictures, this is an early candidate for the year’s best graphic biography.”
His 2021 graphic novel ''Fictional Father'' was a shortlisted finalist for the
CBC Books
CBC Arts () is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that creates and curates written articles, short documentaries, non-fiction series and interactive projects that represent the excellence of Canada's diverse artistic communitie ...
, October 14, 2021.
Bibliography
*''Chewing on Tinfoil'' (2002)
*''The Big Book of Wag!'' (2005)
*''This Will All End in Tears'' (2006)
*''Mid-Life'' (2011)
*''Milo and Sam: Pastoral Return'', with Andy Brown (2012)
*''Science Fiction'' (2013)
*''Happy Stories About Well-Adjusted People'' (2014)
*''The Abominable Mr. Seabrook'' (2017)
*''Fictional Father'' (2021)
Awards
Best Book, ''This Will All End in Tears'' 2007
Doug Wright Award
The Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning (established in December 2004) are literary awards handed out annually since 2005 during the Toronto Comic Arts Festival to Canadian cartoonists honouring excellence in comics (including webcomics) ...