The Comedians: A New Monthly Comedy Magazine

A few weeks ago I walked into a neighborhood bar/comedy venue and a friend of mine ran up to show me a new magazine that she'd found sitting in the window. It was called The Comedians and featured profiles on a few of my local comedy buddies, with accompanying photos. As it turned out, I had done a photo shoot with one of comics profiled, Jesse Joyce, and some of those images had made it into the magazine along with a very nice credit for me up front. The magazine had a clean, crisp design, thoughtful interviews with the subjects and was clearly the labor of love of a true comedy fan.

Besides being flattered at the surprise credit, seeing the magazine did my heart good. Working in publishing for my day job, I've heard at least dozen times that you can't make a profitable humor magazine anymore. And while that generally seems to be true — most humor pubs are constantly struggling and others never even make it off hastily-sketched cocktail napkins — I was thrilled to find that there was someone out there who cares enough about comedy to say, "Screw it, I'm doing it anyway."

Last Friday I got to meet the creator of the magazine, Ken Carlson, and I could not have been more impressed. This guy interviews the comics, writes the entire magazine, designs it and self-publishes it out of his own pocket. He's a great guy and as evidenced by the two issues of the magazine I've seen thus far, he's a freakin' dynamo. When I can afford to buy an ad, I'll buy one in this rag. Check out the Web site, and look for the print edition in a better bar near you (by near you, I mean only if you're in New York and probably on the Lower East Side).

Photo of Todd Levin by Lisa Whiteman, via thecomedians.org