When fans and advocates of Steve Dildarian speak admiringly of his distinctive voice, they are usually referring to the wry, resigned writing style that helped him get his new HBO animated series, “The Life & Times of Tim.” But his speaking voice probably helped too.

In person, it’s hard not to imagine Mr. Dildarian, 38, a former advertising copywriter who is the creator, writer and off-camera star of “Tim,” as the subject of a cartoon. He has the mildly disheveled look of a “Peanuts” character and wide, anime eyes, and when he speaks, in an adenoidal tone that evokes a blend of Ray Romano and Jim Henson, he often sounds as if he were stalling for time, even when he knows what he’s going to say.

Here, for example, is how he described in a recent interview the terrible day he spent working as a telemarketer, not long after graduating from college:

“I was selling, ahhh, meat  frozen meat that people would put in their basement freezer. If people do that, I guess they do. Ahhh. Calling and saying: ‘Hey, I’m Steve from Country Fresh Farm. Ahhh. You want to buy some frozen meat?’ ”

Image Mr. Dildarian, a former advertising copywriter, parlayed an animated short film he created into a comedy series, now on HBO. Credit... Jason Merritt/HBO

Now that he is well beyond such dead-end jobs, he has channeled that same halting delivery and “why me?” attitude into “Tim,” which had its premiere on Sunday. He provides the voice of the luckless but unflappable title character and subjects him to far greater indignities. When Tim attends a wedding, he somehow ends up lewdly groping the octogenarian grandmother of the bride. And when Tim’s girlfriend takes her parents home to meet him, they find him on the couch with an irate prostitute.