Customer Reviews

Peepshow: The Cartoon Diary Joe Matt

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Comic artist Joe Matt's first comic strips are collected in this fantastic volume. Included is an intimate look at Joe's nervous world of girl troubles and toilet humor. Joe dicusses his perosnal relationships and how he destroys them, exlains how to move one's bowels with absolute stealth and includes a how-to guide for cheap skates. This is by far some of the best comic strip work out there today, but be warned, Joe Matt is R. Crumb inspired so be ready for this raw peep into Joe Matt's private life.

At first I wasn't so sure about Joe Matt but he's really grown on me. He's so painfully honest about himself that it's amazing. Especially the story where he beat up his girlfriend. That was shocking that he included it in his comix... most would edit something like that out. He has a wonderful grasp on the stuggles of long-term relationships - and he manages to keep it pretty damn funny at the same time. His more recent comics about his problems(?) with porn are wonderful too. Any man who isn't embarrased to print a 10 page comic of himself dubbing his friends' porno movies is a saint in my book. Wonderful.

I loved this book. Joe is being more honest than most of you might believe. I grew up in that "small suburb of Philadelphia" directly across that street from Joe, and I have to tell you that the stories are real. It was like reliving my childhood reading Peepshow. That underground fort across the street from 7-11...my older brothers helped build it. He was as germ-phobic, and nerotic in real life as he is in Peepshow.

I am however disappointed that my brothers and I never got a mention in the book.

Joe Matt collects pages of his early comics work from when he started in 1987 up to 1991. The strips chronicle his neuroses about masturbation (something readers of his other books would know only too well), his troubled relationship with his girlfriend Trish, his obsession with saving money, comics, as well as snapshots from his past at high school, art school, summer jobs, his family, former girlfriends, and how he came to meet Chester Brown and Seth.

"Peepshow" being his earliest works, they show how he started out writing tiny panelled one-pagers and slowly developed into a more confident artist/writer trying different styles, larger panels, longer stories until by the end of the book Joe is putting together pages and pages for a narrative rather than relying on the one page format.

It's different from his other books as it's more bite-sized though the topics are great. Joe's obsessions are trivial and he knows it but he makes them fascinating for the reader not simply through embarassing sheer honesty but by telling them well. He's a born storyteller and simple stories about a fight with his girlfriend Trish over a shiatsu massage can be spun out over several (large) pages and be the stuff of high drama.

Also if you're a fan of other Drawn & Quarterly artists you'll be interested in Joe's meetings with Chester Brown (Yummy Fur) and Seth (Palookaville) and how they became friends, and how they lived in the early '90s. Also Seth contributes a 2 page strip as an afterword, explaining a few things about Joe Matt that doesn't portray him in the best light (but then neither do Joe's own strips) but is still very funny.

It's a great comic book from a great comic book artist whom I wish would get over his insecurities and put out more books like Seth does. A fun read and very enjoyable, "Peepshow" is brilliant.

Great, great stuff. Joe's writing and art really brings you into the story and gets you attached to his (seemingly bizzare, pathetic) life, makes you feel sympathy for what he and his girl are going through. The characters are wonderful. His life, his relationships with his friends, girlfriend, relatives--all interesting and, as he presents it, fun.

I read a lot of "indie" (D&G, Fantagraphics, etc.) comics so I'm sorry I had to come across Joe in a used bookstore. He should be up there with Bagge, Seth, Bechdel, and all those other great autobiographic comic artists.

Please buy this book and encourage him to write more. Also, so he doesn't have to color superhero comics anymore.

Peepshow is Joe Matt's brilliant debut--and it has all the growing pangs a great comic should have: It's sometimes awkward, squeaky, and the inch by inch panels are sometimes a pain to squint through. But this is great stuff. Smart, unafraid, dirty, and hilarious, Matt tells the story of his background, personality and new relationship with girlfriend Trish. Most are one-pagers, with "filler" cartoons on Boob the cat, but there are extended episodes without the requisite "punchline," most memorably on how he struggles in resisting porn and masturbation, both of which Trish doesn't approve. (Sorry, I can't be euphemistic. If you don't want to read about a white kid from Philly masturbating, this comic is probably not for you.) Best of all is the guest comic by Seth at the back of the book that turns the autobiography on its head. Seth confirms and tells you Matt's actually worse than how he presents himself!

This is NOT sentimental stuff--this isn't Jeffrey Brown--but it isn't offensive, and thankfully there isn't much nudity, either. I definitely don't recommend this for your kids (with a title like Peepshow, who would?). And unlike another reviewer, I'd say intelligent women with a sense of humor would love this too. Unlike Matt's later work, his adolescent despair doesn't bog this book down. Peepshow is unexpected, frank, coarse and fun.

I found this book very worthwhile. I originally bought it, and after browsing through the inside, I was about to immediately return it (found the art tiny and unappealing). I decided to read it anyway, and found that I enjoyed it alot. This book contains a bunch of B&W vignettes and stories about the author and his girlfriends. He is painfully honest and the flow is awesome (think: Crumb, Clowes), but there is one problem. I only buy graphic novels so that i can re-read them forever. After first reading, the binding began to rip, and the first two pages fell out.

Love the book, but if I can't re-read it (because spine falls apart), goodbye!

The problem with taking Harvey Pekar's comic works as a guide and trying to do the same thing is that it requires a huge talent--you must do it exactly right for it to work. Joe Matt shows us how it ISN'T done.
Pekar chronicles his own life, warts and all. Joe Matt can't see past the warts, and has come to the erroneous conclusion that simply recording his problems and fears equals *A*R*T*. It ain't that easy!
Pekar, although he writes about himself, also pays attention to the people around him. They're forever saying things that you find yourself remembering. Joe Matt's view of life is adolescently centered on himself, and everyone around him is reduced to shallow caricatures. Yes, he is self-aware of this, but that doesn't make the end result worth reading.