By Dan Brown

At some point in the last few years, Joe Ollmann went from being a very good graphic novelist to a truly great one.

His new book, The Woodchipper, is proof he has made that transition. 

Out now, the collection contains five graphic short stories – or whatever you want to call them.

“Short-story collections can be a hard sell,” the Hamilton comic creator’s cartoon self explains in the book’s introduction. Maybe so, but Ollmann is making a strong case for the possibilities of the genre.

Just as the late Alice Munro was a legendary writer of prose short stories, Ollmann has mastered the graphic equivalent.

His stories are thought-provoking, funny, and sad. The common thread running through the five pieces here is how Ollmann concludes each with one of his patented “anti-twist endings,” in which almost nothing happens, yet the main character’s world is forever changed.

My favourite of the lot is called Meat, and tells the story of Kara, a security guard at an animal-packing plant who befriends one of the protesters outside the company fence.

“I’m Paul Blart with a moral conscience,” Kara says in her inner monologue, before being presented with an ethical dilemma.

I won’t give away the rest of the story, but let’s just say Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth is no longer the only tale from a Southwestern Ontario creator that features a half-human, half-pig hybrid. 

And that’s the thing about the stories in this collection: None of them suffers for being short. They all feel as complex as a “full” graphic novel. Ollman packs each one with so much character detail and meaning.

Also not to be missed is Nestled All Snug, in which bookstore employee Sasha gets locked in a bathroom in the back of the shop over the Christmas holidays.

The slowly building drama here isn’t so much dependent on whether she can escape or not, but on what she will do to survive. Can Sasha, her mouth dry from hours of captivity, break down and drink the toilet water in order to endure? You’ll have to read the story to find out what she decides.

As for the title story, it’s a perfect example of Ollmann’s theory about creating reverse-surprise endings. 

I’ll spoil it by revealing no human appendage actually gets torn to pieces in the titular chipper, but nothing is the same at the end of the story as it was in the beginning. 

Maybe you’re not familiar with Ollmann’s work. Maybe you’re looking for a point of entry into his oeuvre, which also includes full-length graphic novels such as Fictional Father and The Abominable Mr. Seabrook and yet more short-story collections.

The Woodchipper, full of compelling character moments that centre on “non-incidents,” is the perfect place to start.

I doubt Ollmann needs ideas, but I hope he considers a straight-on autobiography next time out. The snippets of his life we get from the introductions to his books just aren’t enough anymore.

How about it, Joe?

Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.