Joseph Allan Waldon (December 1, 1956 - May 12, 2013), more often known as Joe or Joey, was an artist and stand-up comedian based mostly in Austin, Texas. Born in East Peoria, Illinois, Waldon attended East Peoria Community High School before moving to Dallas and Austin, Texas. Waldon was a prolific artist and produced many cartoons, paintings, and images that appeared in a variety of formats, including postcards and tee shirts. He also performed for years as a stand-up comedian at the Austin clubs Laff Stop and the Velveeta Room, becoming a fixture of the standup comedian community in the city. In the late 1980s, he had a regular cartoon column in the Austin Chronicle. Both his art and comedy emphasized wordplay, irreverence, and dark humor (regarding his artistic style, Waldon said: 'I consider myself to be a Pop Expressionist, a Primitive Contemporary, an outsider looking in, a Surreal Estate Agent'). He was also inspired by the environment of his adopted home; armadillos were a frequent subject of his cartoons and he self-published two collections based on drawings of the critters (There's an armadillo in my chili in 1981 and Too Much Tongue: Armadillo Comics by Joe Waldon in 1983). Waldon briefly relocated to the West Coast in the early 1990s before returning to Texas and settling in Dallas.
