Joe Matt

Joe Matt was an American cartoonist born on September 3, 1963, and died on September 18, 2023. He is best remembered for his unflinchingly autobiographical comic series *Peepshow*, which ran from the late 1980s onward and laid bare his personal foibles, relationships, and creative struggles with a rare, often uncomfortable honesty. Matt entered comics in the mid-1980s, contributing to independent anthologies before launching *Peepshow* as a solo vehicle. His style was clean and expressive, with a deceptively simple line that could shift from deadpan humor to raw emotional confession. He collaborated closely with fellow autobiographical cartoonists Chester Brown and Seth, with whom he shared a notable creative kinship. Beyond *Peepshow*, Matt worked as an artist, colorist, inker, and letterer on titles such as *Grendel*, *Grendel: The Devil Inside*, and *Robotech: The Macross Saga*. He also produced the collected works *Peepshow: The Cartoon Diary of Joe Matt* and *The Poor Bastard*. His later years were spent in relative seclusion in Los Angeles, where he continued to produce occasional new pages until his death. Matt received an Eisner Award nomination for his work and remains a key figure in the confessional wave of 1990s alternative comics.