Joe Matt wears his heart on his pen. Since 1987, the cartoonist’s trials and tribulations pertaining to friends, roommates, his cat, his relationships with women, his porn habit and the human race, have all been found in his serialized autobiographical comic book, Peep Show. Joe was kind enough to answer some of my questions recently, via email. The results are below.

Hey Joe. How are you?

I’m okay. I’m still hurting from a recent break-up though. It’s the same old story … boy meets girl, boy neglects to work on himself and his comic book, boy loses girl.

You moved to LA, from Toronto in 2003.  How are you enjoying it?

LA’s pretty great. I live in a nice, little neighborhood called Los Feliz, just east of Hollywood. The weather’s almost always nice and I can easily walk or bike to anywhere I need to be. It’s pretty ideal.

You choose to get around by bicycle in LA, which is deemed absurd to many of it’s residents since the city is so spread out. This must effect where you dwell. Why do you choose to travel this way?

LA people give me so much shit about not owning a car, but the truth is: I have nowhere I need to be! I can bike or take the bus to practically anywhere, but really, I prefer to just stick to maybe a 5 mile radius. I was always like this in any city that I’ve lived in. I love biking and I hate being in cars. Also, from my observations, people, for the most part, are rarely driving  much further than I’m biking. It seems like everyone’s driving off to a job they don’t like, just so they can earn the money to afford the car to drive to the job. I want no part of that life. I live WAY below the poverty level and I’m fine there.

Do you miss living in Toronto?

Not really. I moved out because I’d had enough of Toronto. I lived there for something like 13 years and I knew every street and alley like the back of my hand. It was a nice city, but it was time for me to move on. The only thing I really miss is the friendship I shared with fellow cartoonists, Chester Brown and Seth.

How did you manage to live illegally in Canada for as long as you did
without suspicion?

I just rented a room in a boarding house in Toronto. There was nothing to it. I’d travel back and forth between my father’s house in Philadelphia and Toronto. I still had books and stuff in storage at my father’s, so part of me still felt like I sort of lived there.
I’d just lie at the Canadian border and say I was visiting friends in Toronto for a week, but then I’d stay for as long as I felt like. It wasn’t a big deal in the 90s. My passport rarely got stamped, so there was no way to keep track of how long I’d been in Canada.
I never felt like I was doing anything wrong anyway. I was contributing to the Canadian economy, while still legally paying my taxes in the states, as if I were still living with my father. After 9-11 though, I grew increasingly worried that a computer data-base and scanning of passports would eventually foil my plans to stay in Canada indefinitely, so that contributed to my decision to move as well.

You’re originally from Philly. Tell me a little bit about that. Do you miss it? How often do you visit?

I don’t miss Philly at all! I visit my family members there every 6 to 10 months, I guess, depending on my mood and finances.
Again … these cities that I’ve lived in (including 3 1/2 years in Montreal) … they don’t really matter all that much to me. They’re far more similar than dissimilar. As long as I’m near a decent comic shop and library, I’m pretty happy. Coffee shops are everywhere!
All I’ve ever really needed is a small room to live and work in. My needs and wants are minimal. I own a nice bicycle, but I consider that a luxury … unlike my massive book collection, which I consider a necessity.

You are blatant in confessing the slow pace in which you work. So, what have you been doing with yourself?

I’ve been doing everything OTHER than work! Answering your questions right this very moment qualifies … as does ALL time wasted on the computer, or biking around, or hanging out with friends, or with a girlfriend, or reading, or watching  porn, or shopping, or waiting in line at the post office, or talking on the phone, or showering, or shaving, or seeing a movie … y’know … the time just flies and before you know it, the wasted days just pile up. I make no excuses for not working. It’s SO much work, for SO little return. There are also a number of other factors that’ve affected my productivity over the years, and these will all be mentioned and cataloged in my next book.

When can we expect your next book?

Good question. When the elves get done inking it? I don’t know when it’ll be done exactly. It’ll be over 200 pages, and I feel like I need about a year to get it all done, but that’s only if I’m hitting on all four cylinders and working efficiently. Unfortunately, I keep starting and stopping. Something always seems to pop up and derail me. Often, it’s someone wanting artwork from me, which I have a hard time refusing. I’m also trying to paint more, in sketchbooks, just because it’s funner and easier than writing/drawing comics. It’s like instant gratification. (My sketchbook art can be seen on my Facebook profile, under “wall photos.” Sorry, but I don’t add strangers.)
But I am trying to work and stay focused. It’s been an uphill climb from the depths of despair and stagnation. Not to sound all whiny. Haha. Last night, I stumbled up a few paragraphs by my favorite writer, E.B. White, which I find appropriate to this topic and which I will now quote:

“Delay is natural to a writer. He is like a surfer–he bides his time, waits for the perfect wave on which to ride in. Delay is instinctive with him. He waits for the surge (of emotion? of strength? of courage?) that will carry him along. I have no warm-up exercises, other than to take an occasional drink. I am apt to let something simmer for a while in my mind before trying to put it into words. I walk around, straughtening pictures on the wall, rugs on the floor–as though not until everything in the world was lined up and perfectly true could anybody reasonably expect me to set a word down on paper.”

“There are two faces to discipline. If a man (who writes) feels like going to a zoo, he should by all means go to a zoo. He might even be lucky, as I once was when I paid a call at the Bronx Zoo and found myself attending the birth of twin fawns. It was a fine sight, and I lost no time writing a piece about it. The other face of discipline is that, zoo or no zoo, in the end a man must sit down and get words on paper, and against great odds. This takes stamina and resolution. Having got them on paper, he must still have the discipline to discard them if they fail to measure up; he must view them with a jaundiced eye and do the whole thing over as many times is necessary to achieve excellence, or as close to excellence as he can get.”

” The thought of writing hangs over our mind like an ugly cloud, making us apprehensive and depressed, as before a summer storm, so that we begin the day by subsiding after breakfast, or by going away, often to seedy and inconclusive destinations: the nearest zoo, or a branch post office to buy a few stamped envelopes. Our professional life has been a long shameless exercise in avoidance. Our home is designed for the maximum of interruption, our office is the place where we never are . . . Yet the record is there. Not even lying down and closing the blinds stops us from writing.”

*whew*  There you have it! And E.B. White’s only talking about writing! Add in the visual element of comics: composition, penciling, inking, lettering…not to mention the infinite choices facing a cartoonist within a single panel! It’s not only overwhelming, but for a perfectionist like myself, getting the artwork “camera-ready” can be the most hellish experience on earth…and it has been! By the way, I had to copy those E.B. White paragraphs from a book. I didn’t cut and paste them from the Internet. I only mention this because it speaks of my nature and tendency to embrace the more tangible things in this world.

Do you still collect Gasoline Alley strips?

I have a near-complete collection of Gasoline Alley Sundays and dailies from 1921-1951.
But, occasionally, I’ll go onto ebay and look for tabloid-sized Sundays from 1935-1951. These are smaller-sized Sundays, as compared to the enormous full pages of 1921- mid1935. And the reason I look for certain Sundays is because some of mine are in a horizontal format (called half-Sundays) and I’d like to upgrade them to a tabloid-size, full page. My goal is to have all of them in a uniform size, glued into scrapbooks. And I still need to replace about 50 Sundays in this manner. *sigh*

You have exposed much of your private life through the pages of your work.  As a cartoonist, why did you choose to express yourself in this way? As opposed to say, fiction?

It just seems easier to be honest. Fiction feels too much like lying to me! Haha. And with autobiography, there’s a built-in consistency, where every new piece adds something to the body of work and ultimately, all the pieces inform each other. That’s the real appeal for me. Plus, I have no shame, so why not capitalize on it?

Anything to note, in general, that has really been blowing your mind?

I recently passed my books onto a projects-developer from Lionsgate Productions and that’s exciting to me.
Back in 2004,  HBO was interested in turning my book, THE POOR BASTARD, into a TV show … but that’s come and gone now. It would’ve been a disaster anyway. I was involved with all the wrong people. But … if something good came from an association with Lionsgate, I’d be thrilled … not the least for the potential money. My only dream has been to be able to afford to buy a small, small house or condo and then get all my books under one roof. And if I could ever manage that, I’d be pretty satisfied.

5 things you would bring with you to a deserted island?

1) My book collection
2) My porn collection, tv and dvd player.
3) Art supplies, a desk and lamp.
4) A telephone.
5) A functioning bathroom and shower.

Not coincidentally, these are ALL the things I have EVER had and needed!!

Thanks for letting me pick your brain, Joe.

My pleasure, Justin!!!  THANKS!!  Bye!!!!

Below, Joe discusses what he bought at the LA location of the Amoeba Music Store in an episode of What’s In Your Bag.