Joe Matt Obituary, Death – Joe Matt, the well-known cartoonist behind the enduring autobiographical series Peepshow, has passed away at the age of 60. Matt was nominated for numerous comic book honors over the years, including multiple Eisner honors. I must deliver some very unfortunate news, and I do so with much sadness. Joe Matt, a longtime friend, sporadic collaborator, and fellow pop culture nut, passed away abruptly and unexpectedly.
Joe and I met when we were both students at the Philadelphia College of Art, as many of you are aware, and our shared interest in comic books and music soon developed a bond that has endured through the years. Joe eventually worked on my final issue of MAGE—THE HERO DISCOVERED as a color and production assistant before moving on to expertly color a large number of issues of the original monthly GRENDEL series and, of course, the iconic first BATMAN—GRENDEL crossover series.
But PEEPSHOW, his own truth-and-all autobiographical comic, was where he found his greatest renown and artistic expression. Anyone who knew Joe was aware that, while he was frequently as annoyingly stubborn and neurotic as he depicted himself in those pages, he was also endearing, humorous, perceptive, and devoted to the few people he thought were worth the effort.
Here are a few sketches I made of Joe from “back in the day” when we used to hang out in my studio/apartment on Green Street in Philadelphia. I found them while digging through an old sketchbook. The first was a sketch that Joe and I both completed while seated on opposite ends of my couch. The second picture is shows Joe hard at work; I’m quite sure he’s cutting friskets for one of the most recent installments of MAGE’s blue lines. Joe had been living in LA for the past eight to ten years, and we generally stayed in touch every two weeks through late-night Messenger chats.
I’ll miss my old friend terribly, both for his singular perspective on life and for the way he and I used to start every phone call by yelling Donald Duck gibberish at one another. Goodbye, Broheim; without you, the world is a little bit more dull. Matt Wagner, a comic book author and illustrator who has known Matt for a long time, posted the heartbreaking news on social media on Monday night.
