Matt Melvin
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Matthew Melvin Schultzman (born November 26, 1984) is an American
cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...
and writer. He is known for his work on '' Cyanide & Happiness'' and his
fantasy novel Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. magic (paranormal), Magic, the supernatural and Legendary creature, magical creatures are common i ...
''The Leeches Loom''.


Early life

Talking about his childhood, Melvin described himself as "a shy little kid hodeveloped interest in various hobbies." Melvin started telling jokes and use humor in order to get over his shyness. At the age of 14, Melvin got a job at a community college computer lab, despite never having owned a computer himself and being two years below the
legal working age The legal working age is the minimum age required by law in each country or jurisdiction for a young person who has not yet reached the age of majority to be allowed to work. Activities that are dangerous, harmful to the health or that may aff ...
. This was his first significant access to the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
, and an instructor taught him how to create a webpage on
GeoCities GeoCities, later Yahoo! GeoCities, was a web hosting service that allowed users to create and publish websites for free and to browse user-created websites by their theme or interest, active from 1994 to 2009. GeoCities was started in November 1 ...
, which he populated primarily with ''
South Park ''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boysStan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand the ...
'' animated
GIFs The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , ) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on June 15, 1987. The format can co ...
. Melvin never read many
comics a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...
during his childhood, except for ''
The Far Side ''The Far Side'' is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from December 31, 1979, to January 1, 1995 (when Larson retired as a cartoonist). Its surrea ...
'' by
Gary Larson Gary Larson (born August 14, 1950) is an American cartoonist who created ''The Far Side'', a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to more than 1,900 newspapers for fifteen years. The series ended on January 1, 1995, ...
and ''
Life in Hell ''Life in Hell'' was a comic strip by Matt Groening that was published weekly from 1977 to 2012. Its main characters include anthropomorphic rabbits and a gay couple. The comic covers a wide range of subjects, such as love, sex, work, and deat ...
'' by
Matt Groening Matthew Abram Groening ( ; born February 15, 1954) is an American cartoonist, writer, producer, and animator. He is best known as the creator of the television series ''The Simpsons'' (1989–present), ''Futurama'' (1999–2003, 2008–2013, 2 ...
. Instead, he was a big fan of
sketch comedy Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches" or, "skits", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. While the form developed and became popular in ...
, and pointed at The Kids in the Hall,
Monty Python Monty Python, also known as the Pythons, were a British comedy troupe formed in 1969 consisting of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. The group came to prominence for the sketch comedy ser ...
,
Upright Citizens Brigade The Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) is an improvisational and sketch comedy group that emerged from Chicago's ImprovOlympic in 1990. The original incarnation of the group consisted of Amy Poehler, Matthew Walsh, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, ...
, and '' Mr. Show with Bob and David'' as his comedic inspirations. Melvin has also been influenced by the
stand-up comedy Stand-up comedy is a performance directed to a live audience, where the performer stands on a stage (theatre), stage and delivers humour, humorous and satire, satirical monologues sometimes incorporating physical comedy, physical acts. These ...
of
Lewis Black Lewis Niles Black (born August 30, 1948) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. His comedy routines often escalate into angry rants about history, politics, religion and cultural trends. He hosted the Comedy Central series ''Lewis Black's ...
,
Mitch Hedberg Mitchell Lee Hedberg (February 24, 1968 – March 23, 2005) was an American stand-up comedian known for his surreal humor and deadpan delivery. His comedy typically featured short, sometimes one-line jokes mixed with absurd elements and non s ...
,
David Cross David Cross (born April 4, 1964) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and director. Cross is best known for his stand-up performances, the HBO sketch comedy series '' Mr. Show with Bob and David'' (1995–1998), his role as Ian Hawk ...
,
Patton Oswalt Patton Peter Oswalt (born January 27, 1969) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. His acting roles include Spence Olchin in the sitcom ''The King of Queens'' (1998–2007) and narrating the sitcom '' The Goldbergs'' (2013–2023) as adult ...
,
Demetri Martin Demetri Martin (, ''Dimitrios Evangelos Martin''; born May 25, 1973) is an American comedian, actor, writer, director, cartoonist and musician. He was a contributor on ''The Daily Show''. In stand-up, he is known for his deadpan delivery, playing ...
, and
Sarah Silverman Sarah Kate Silverman (born December 1, 1970) is an American stand-up comedian, actress, and writer. She first rose to prominence for her brief stint as a writer and cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series ''Saturday Night Live'' during its ...
.


Career

In collaboration with Rob DenBleyker, Matt Melvin started creating "bad
stick figure Stick Figure is an American reggae and dub band founded in 2005. The group has released eight full-length albums and one instrumental album (Prince Fatty Presents), all of which were written and produced by frontman and self-taught multi-instr ...
death movies" in 1999 or 2000, under the title ''StickSuicide''. The two posted these videos on
Newgrounds Newgrounds is an American entertainment website founded by Tom Fulp in 1995 and owned by Newgrounds.com, Inc. The site hosts user-generated content such as games, films, audio, and artwork. Fulp produces in-house content at the headquarters and ...
. In 2004, Melvin started to collaborate with
Fort Bridger Fort Bridger was originally a 19th-century fur trading outpost established in 1842, on Blacks Fork of the Green River, in what is now Uinta County, Wyoming, United States and was then part of Mexico. It became a vital resupply point for wagon ...
-based Kris Wilson,
Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
-based Rob DenBleyker, and
Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...
-based Dave McElfatrick to form Explosm, a group of international webcartoonists who create the ''Cyanide & Happiness'' webcomic. Generally, each page of ''Cyanide and Happiness'' is conceptualized and fully realized by one of the members, the four webcartoonists working primarily solo. In 2014, Explosm announced that Melvin had parted ways with the rest of the group. There was disagreement within the group about the direction that ''Cyanide & Happiness'' was taking. McElfatrick stated that the members of the group "were all pulling in different directions," such as with a new website design and other new elements. "It's not been good for anyone, really. But we can just try and move on and do what we do," McElfatrick said of the split, and he noted that the Explosm team is still very supportive of Melvin's works. Melvin's last strip for ''Cyanide & Happiness'' was published on February 9, 2014. The same year, Melvin started writing the webcomic ''The Last Nerds on Earth'' in collaboration with his girlfriend Austen, about two
nerd A nerd is a person seen as overly intellectual, obsessive, introverted, or lacking social skills. Such a person may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular, little known, or non-mainstream activities, which are generally either highly t ...
s who are trying to survive a
zombie apocalypse Zombie apocalypse is a subgenre of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction in which society collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Usually, only a few individuals or small bands of human survivors are left living. There are many d ...
. This webcomic was put on indefinite hiatus in 2016.


Style

Melvin has described himself as "an adult with a mind of a child," being someone who finds
flatulence humor Flatulence humor (more commonly known as fart jokes) is a form of toilet humor that refers to flatulence. It can take the form of to any type of joke, practical joke device, or other off-color humor . History Although it is likely that flatulen ...
highly comedic. Because of his "terrible memory", Melvin is rarely able to remember jokes, instead tending to crack jokes spontaneously during conversations. Melvin tends to write two dozen pages at once, filling the gaps in later. In an interview with ''
Comic Book Resources ''CBR'', formerly ''Comic Book Resources'', is a news website primarily covering comic book news, comic book reviews, and comic book–related topics involving movies, television, anime, and video games. It is owned by Valnet, parent of publicat ...
'', Melvin noted that a large number of his ''Cyanide & Happiness'' jokes are sexual in nature, be it about
necrophilia Necrophilia, also known as necrophilism, necrolagnia, necrocoitus, necrochlesis, and thanatophilia, is sexual attraction or acts involving corpses. It is classified as a paraphilia by the World Health Organization (WHO) in its ''International ...
,
pedophilia Pedophilia ( alternatively spelled paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of pube ...
, or
sexually transmitted diseases A sexually transmitted infection (STI), also referred to as a sexually transmitted disease (STD) and the older term venereal disease (VD), is an infection that is spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, oral ...
. Kris Wilson comedically described Melvin as "the 'buttsex' go to guy."


References


External links


Personal blog
by Matt Melvin
''The Last Nerds on Earth''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Melvin, Matt 1984 births Living people American webcomic creators Artists from San Diego American fantasy writers Jewish American comics writers Newgrounds people