Joe Matt, Acclaimed Creator of Peepshow, Passes Away at Age 60

Joe Matt, the acclaimed cartoonist behind the long-running autobiographical series, Peepshow, which earned Matt a number of nominations for comic book awards over the years, including multiple Eisner Awards, has passed away at the age of 60. Matt's longtime friend, comic book writer/artist Matt Wagner, shared the sad news on social media on Monday night... Joe Matt began drawing the autobiographical comic that would become Peepshow as a series of autobiographical comic strips. In 1991, Matt transitioned the comic into comic book form with the debut of Peepshow #1 by Drawn & Quarterly. Matt was good friends with fellow Drawn & Quarterly cartoonists, Seth and Chester Brown, and the other two cartoonists were regular features in Matt's comics, which would capture the awkwardness of Matt's existence with his then-girlfriend, Trish, and generally Matt's views about women, sex and pornography. He described his work in 2007 as, "I'm a voyeur and I'm trying to make the book I would most enjoy reading. I would imagine other voyeurs are interested if it's done well. I think autobiographical comics have been given a bad name simply because of the fact that I've focused a lot on porn and masturbation. I feel like that's colored the whole genre for some people. Not every autobiographical cartoonist is doing that. I'm following Crumb's lead where he explores his obsessions, at least with women."