Ollmann cites Peanuts, Spiderman, Captain America, and Mad magazine as early formative influences, but perhaps a better indication of his sensibility would be the American realist tradition epitomized by Harvey Pekar (American Splendor) and Robert Crumb in his more restrained mode. He’s got kindred spirits in literature and music, too – like Charles Bukowski and Tom Waits, he expresses compassion for society’s downtrodden and marginalized through vivid narratives that get right in the muck and murk of life. And like all of the above, he can shift from wrenching to gut-bustingly funny in a blink.

Ian McGillis: Your work strikes me as especially strong in the writing department. That’s not to imply that the visuals aren’t striking too, only that the storytelling reads as uncommonly well crafted. Do the stories come first, or is your process more organic?

Joe Ollmann: I’m definitely more of a writer who also draws. I mean, I work hard on the visuals, but I am always acutely aware of my limitations. And it helps that every review of my books always mentions my “grotesque, claustrophobic, ugly” artwork. I’m like, “I know, I know.” I guess I’ve grown accustomed to my art and am resigned to it, trying to improve the elements that I can, cognizant always that I ain’t never gonna be no Rembrandt.

The stories definitely come first. I generally write a straight short story and adapt that into a comic script where some interior monologues and descriptions will become narration, then I storyboard that and break it down into pages. I know some cartoonists who work unscripted, or from a rough outline, but I go in from the beginning like a general planning a massive attack.

IM: To what degree do you feel your characters need to be conventionally sympathetic? Do you enjoy walking that likeable/unlikeable line? It could be that I’m thinking of the protagonist of “Hanging Over” here.

JO: Probably subconsciously my ex-Catholic need to be good stops me from writing completely unsympathetic characters. You spend a lot of time with the characters you write, so you tend to make them likable to yourself to some degree, like the people you choose to surround yourself with in real life. I also think that completely unsympathetic characters, while they may be interesting as biological specimens, are pretty hard to relate to or root for, and I always want people to care about the people I write about like I care about them.

IM: The heroines of “Big Boned” and “Otherwise, Arachis Hypogaea” are two of my favourite characters in the book, and show a real ability on your part to empathize with female characters. Insofar as it’s possible, could you tell me about the genesis and development of one of them?

JO: Charlene in “Big Boned” came from a small incident on a bus a long time ago. This drunk old guy was annoying this young woman, hopelessly flirting with her and annoying the hell out of her, but she was politely and shyly kind of tolerating it. I could see that the old man felt he could get away with it only because she was overweight and therefore “flawed” and would possibly lack the confidence to tell him to f—k off. And watching her, I was like, “Why is she being polite to this piece of shit?” I was feeling all noble and kind of physically insinuated myself in between them and did my smile that says “Aren’t I a good person?” that I usually reserve for gay couples holding hands or disfigured children, to let them know I’m a good person who likes them. So I guess I was probably filled with such self-loathing at that moment that I projected it onto her and thought of how annoyed and angry and full of rage she must be, not just against the drunk but against me, the smug self-righteous guy making assumptions about her.