Character from Sally Face by Steve Gabry (Portable Moose)
Larry's father — a cult defector who abandoned his family not out of cowardice but to sabotage a plot to murder 255 children, and was killed for his betrayal before his son ever learned the truth.
Jim Johnson is the absent father who turns out to be a tragic hero. For years, Larry believed his father simply left — the kind of abandonment that shapes a kid into someone who holds on too tight to everyone else. The truth is worse and better simultaneously: Jim was a member of the Devourers of God who had a change of heart and left to sabotage their 1984 plot to mass-murder children across North America. He succeeded in disrupting part of the operation but was killed by the cult for his betrayal. Larry discovers this too late to process it with his father but early enough to understand that the man he resented was actually trying to save the world, one terrible choice at a time.
Seen only in photographs and memories: a man who looks like an older version of Larry, with the same long face and dark eyes. In Larry's childhood photos, he's smiling and present. Then he's simply gone.
Also known as: Mr. Johnson, Larry's Dad