It is common knowledge that part of a baby’s healthy development is the new parents talking to them. The humor in Daddy Daze by John Kovaleski arises as the father explains to his infant son the circumstances surrounding them. That conversation is about to get very serious.
Beginning March 11 and running for nearly two weeks, Daddy Daze protagonist and single father Paul will grapple with the death of his father and how to explain the loss of a grandparent to his young son, Angus. The jokes and stories in Daddy Daze are often inspired by the real-life antics of its cartoonist, John Kovaleski’s life as a single parent and this storyline is particularly cathartic to John, who lost his own father five years ago and dealt with a similar task of explaining grief and loss to his son.
From John:
All the characters in Daddy Daze have real-life counterparts, including the grandparents. (Since they don’t live close by, and are only communicated with long-distance, they are never actually seen and are represented by a smart phone.)
When my dad died a few years ago it felt disingenuous to still have him in the comic strip, and I started to think about a way to mark his passing. Although fictional overall, this series of strips contains does contain instances that actually happened, including Angus saying things that my son actually said.