Silly Daddy

Large paperback.white FUNNY NEW BOOK

At first glance, this work is reminiscent of Harvey Pekar's American Splendor: both are autobiographical comics series about the everyday life of a struggling comics creator with leftist politics, a short temper and continuing troubles with money and women. But whereas Pekar enlists artists to draw his comics, Chiappetta illustrates his own. This collection shows Chiappetta's considerable evolution as an artist. The drawing and lettering in the early stories, from over a decade ago, looks terribly crude, but the naturalistic family portrait on the book's new cover is genuinely handsome. In between, Chiappetta usually hews a path between realism and caricature; most importantly, he succeeds in visually conveying his characters' emotions. Chiappetta repeatedly experiments both in his graphic styles and in his writing, mixing fantasy with reality, imagining himself and his family 10 years in the future, or the government tattooing bar codes on citizens' arms (though his experiments can misfire). As the book's title suggests, its dominant theme is Chiappetta's love for his daughter Maria; his relationship with her is the stable center of his existence. Seeking direction in life, Chiappetta ultimately turns to Christianity, marries a fellow believer and has a son. Chiappetta considers himself redeemed by God, but judging by what's on the page readers might well think his love as a parent was really behind his spiritual rebirth.
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*Starred Review* Chiappetta is sunnily appealing and also slightly unnerving. But one questions whether Chiappetta could be a good father. Fortunately, he addresses the question right away in his big book focused on his parental responsibilities by confessing his worst moments as a father: the two times he slapped his daughter, then too little to understand his momentary anger. It may be as painful to see Chiappetta own up to the slaps as it is for him to do it, but the admission predisposes us to like the guy thereafter as his first marriage tanks and he adjusts to being a noncustodial parent, making his fatherhood the focus of his comics, and meeting and eventually marrying his second wife, with whom he has a son. There is more than strict autobiography in Chiappetta's work, however. The longest story in the book seems naturalistic at first but turns into an earnest, worrying vision of the future that extends to his daughter's adulthood and beyond. Throughout, he is a varied and fanciful draftsman, who sharpens or blunts realism according to a story's or episode's tone. At its best, his work is as serious, humane, and affecting as the best of Harvey Pekar's American Splendor. Ray Olson
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