BIOGRAPHY:

"The whole question of 'fiction' has always been troublesome to me because as a writer, you're always drawing on your own experiences, so to try to camouflage or change things, it just seems like more trouble than it's worth. It's like telling a lie, and it just multiplies."
Joe Matt, from The Comics Journal interview

Joe Matt (1963- ) was born and raised in Philadelphia where, as he details in his book Fair Weather, he was a spoiled, selfish, and unpleasant child with a bedwetting problem and an obsession for collecting comics. He graduated from the Philadelphia College of Art and in 1987, tired of work, he gave up his day job and started a cartoon diary in which he portrayed himself as a porn obsessed loser, an egotistical liar and cheat - although he maintains that this is not a strictly accurate self portrayal. Since 1992, he has continued to reveal, in embarrassing frankness, his distressing habits and predilections in the cult favourite comic, Peep Show.

Fame and fortune await for Joe Matt as an HBO cable TV series based on his Peep Show comic series is currently in production.

Interviews:
Two Handed Man (2001)
The Comics Journal #183 (1996)

Resources:
Joe Matt at Drawn & Quarterly

Reviews:
iComics: Fair Weather
Peter Bagge: Peep Show #12

Peep Show: The Cartoon Diary Of Joe Matt
Drawn & Quarterly, 1991
Cartoon Diary is the definitive collection of Joe Matt's short one page strips which predate his Peep Show comic... Joe Matt is immature, cowardly, cheap, porn-obsessed, neurotic, compulsive, and self absorbed... but he is also very funny, painfully honest and doesn't mind admitting that he has one or two flaws - in print, in front of everybody. Minor ones, of course.

"Just what the world needs - another repressed, obsessed, ex-catholic cartoonist - I can't wait to see what happens next... God help him!"
Robert Crumb

The Poor Bastard
Drawn & Quarterly, 1996
Collecting the first six issues of his Peep Show comic, The Poor Bastard shows Joe Matt coming to terms with the end of his relationship with Trish and getting back into the dating game. Not a pretty sight. Watch as he alienates lovers and friends in a shamelessly candid and hilarious story about his ruthless quest for a woman who understands him and will meet his ridiculously high standards.

"Joe Matt reveals personal details of his life with the unabashedness, and the timing of a stand-up comedian."
Globe & Mail

Fair Weather
Drawn & Quarterly, 2002
Collecting Peep Show #7-10, in Fair Weather Joe Matt examines his 1970s suburban childhood. In a surprisingly tasteful and thoughtful memoir young Joe Matt is a selfish child who steals from stores, takes advantage of his friends, threatens to burn his mother's house down, teases those weaker than himself, and reveals himself to be a fairly normal child.

"... not so much a look back as it is still present-day examination, the unending attempt to try to understand myself. It's probably more about me now than it is about me as a child. But it just has the trappings of childhood... the reason for the examination of relationships, whether they're male or female, I feel a real urgency or desire for them to last... I hate the fact that so many people have come in and out of my life, and most of them I'm not even in touch with."
Joe Matt, from The Comics Journal interview

Books:
Fair Weather (2002)
Joe Matt's Jam Sketchbook 1995-1998 (1998)
The Poor Bastard (1996)
Peep Show (1991)

Periodicals:
Peep Show #1-13 (1992-2002)