A labour of love

Like a high-efficiency wood chipper, service jobs can chew people up and spit them out.

The Woodchipper, a standout collection of short comics from Governor General’s Literary Awards finalist Joe Ollmann, follows a diverse cast of characters who inevitably find themselves out of their depth, both on the job and in their personal lives. With acerbic wit and the comedic timing of a veteran cartoonist, Ollmann skewers power dynamics and class hierarchies while mining everyday struggles for heartbreak and hope.

Amid disasters of varying scale, The Woodchipper’s characters also contemplate their place in the world, often feeling as boxed in by personal circumstances as they do by job-induced ones. In Nestled All Snug, bookseller Sasha experiences both, as she ends up trapped in a bathroom at her workplace right before closing the shop for the holidays. Even after nodding off from exhaustion, Sasha dreams of not of sugar plums, but of microaggressions from her boyfriend’s family; not even on Christmas Eve is there is peace to be found.

Ollmann crafts the palpable unease in these five slice-of-life-comics through their duelling narratives — what’s happening outwardly (a lot of the time, seemingly nothing) and what’s happening on a character’s face and, by extension, in their head (numerous overlapping anxieties and traumas).

The interplay between the two is unnerving but endlessly entertaining, as is the volume’s introduction, in which a cartoon version of Ollmann offers up cheeky remarks about the merits of graphic fiction amidst current trends in book marketing, and the reception of short stories in particular. More snippets of the author’s trademark humour can be found in the collection’s Notes, which also boasts sketches of everyday sundries clad in sardonic packaging.

But to call Ollmann a cynic would overlook the author’s obvious affection for The Woodchipper’s ragtag bunch and the engaging interiority he provides them.

These characters spring to life through thick, colour-saturated lines and sweat-drenched expressions that betray their attempts to stay calm in a crisis. Many seem to want to escape the nine-panel grid in which they’re contained, as the author ramps up anxiety only to leave a subsequent panel abruptly blank — a fitting technique for stories that aren’t necessarily interested in a clear resolution.

Instead, Ollmann is interested in empathy, and how it might function (or not) amongst those whose profession might not be exactly noble. In the eponymous Woodchipper, such a sentiment is met with derision when maintenance supervisor Charlie is mocked for having a panic attack by the same young co-worker whose negligence incited it.

Likewise, Meat features Kara, a security guard who is radicalized, in large part, by her empathy towards protesters outside her facility, which is considered a betrayal to her peers and the company she works for.

For others, empathy is conditional, or absent altogether; in The Late Checkout, Airbnb owner Kevin finally feels something like compassion when in the shoes of someone he’s exploited.

The volume’s last story, The Thought That Counts, finds video-store manager and “faculty wife” Brian choking back resentment upon discovering how little his spouse’s film-professor colleague knows about film. But, as the author points out, “people need jobs!” and remains even-handed in his portrayals.

Though unscrupulous at times, no one here is truly dastardly; when burnout and stressors abound, personal blind spots and questionable decision-making can become inevitable.

They also make for dynamic storytelling that feels real and complete. A masterclass in short comics, The Woodchipper lays bare the indignities of labour and the humanity in failure with candor and heart.

Nyala Ali writes about race and gender in contemporary narratives.