By Sean Mana

What happens when you drop a team of New York comedians into the luscious heartland of Scotland?

Well, it seems we’ll find out this summer, when sketch comedy group I MOSTLY BLAME MYSELF brings their electrifying set to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival August 20-25. IMBM has been selling out shows in New York City since 2021, performing original sketch comedy and occasionally going viral from short clips posted online. They boast over 750K YouTube subscribers, 125K follows on IG and 6M likes on TikTok.

But how does a sketch comedy troupe find their way out of a sewage filled Williamsburg basement, to one of the biggest art festivals on the planet anyway??

I can only speak for myself (Sean Mana), but when IMBM creator Nick Shanman posted that ad on Backstage, looking to assemble the most fearless, hungry, hilarious comedy team alive, I think we all felt that little tingle in our jeans that pool jets used to give us.

IMBM consists of 9 artists: Nick Shanman, Emma Rylands, Jackson and Kelly Hinden, Kaya Simmons, Allison McHugh, Justin Cooper and myself, Sean Mana. Nick had worked with some of us prior to forming to the group and some of us went through an interview process to prove we had what it takes to open our email. The night of our first meeting, we all looked at one another, already feeling the undeniable chemistry. It was immediately clear: this group, this fellowship was something special, and our different voices, personalities and taste would help set us apart from anything else in the comedy scene.

We set out to do ONE show on the third floor of The Players Theatre, just to see how it goes. A small set was prepared, rehearsed, and promoted and we sold the mother out. The theatre invited us back for another performance to see if lighting would strike twice, and we sold that show out too. The Players Theatre offered a year long residency, performing two shows a month and after selling out several months in a row, IMBM was upgraded to the 170 seat main stage where we’ve continued to sell out for the past 3 years.

There are a few voices writing for IMBM. With every new show, the writers retreat to their darkened cellars and return with a handful of scripts. The sketches are read as a group and voted into the show after a round or two of punch ups. Some of our most viral bits include a whimsical musical about the new sex offender in town, a drug dealing Dora the Explorer parody, a medieval gladiator battle where each combatant brags about their sword and a World War II era musical changing history for one historical figure. The humor is sharp, crude, shocking, silly and humbly self produced.

The virality of the group has certainly contributed to its success – strategically posting 10 second clips with a hilarious caption or click baiting text to bring the scroller in. Once their eyes are on the scene, it’s over for them – they’re fans for LIFE. Some clips have been shared around the internet bringing a flood of new viewers to our channels and pages.

With six performances on the horizon at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, IMBM has a huge collection of great material to pull from and any combination of fan favorites will lead to a brilliant show. We’re excited to take our comedy out of New York City and slap it on the faces of our international audience.

I MOSTLY BLAME MYSELF will perform LIVE at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival August 20-25 at the Gilded Balloon! Tickets are available now.

https://www.youtube.com/@imostlyblamemyself

imostlyblamemyself.com
@imostlyblamemyself

By Paul Angliss

Did you know that in the animal kingdom, ‘the seasonal synchronisation of libidos exhibited by the big litter strategists is rarely observed in human society? Except, that is, in the transient communities formed on Club 18-30 holidays’? And that ‘a man will feel the urge to play the field. Or, in the case of Norwegian men who entertain multiple partners living in communities distributed along high-sided sea inlets, an urge to play the fjord’?

The above are excerpts from my first foray into self-publishing a book, Sperm & Eggs, a kind of satire of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. These I cobbled together with a bunch of other stand-up type observations to fit a narrative, an exploration of a questionable theory, a proposition that the behaviour of men and women is determined by the behaviour of their respective gametes, their sperm and eggs. It’s presented as an accessible-to-the-masses revelatory Jordan Peterson or Richard Dawkins blockbuster, turning on its head what we know about ourselves. Supplemented by illustrations that have only a tenuous link to the subject matter, Sperm & Eggs is a triumph of style over substance. In essence, it is a parody of the bestseller non-fiction genre. Furthermore, Sperm & Eggs is reassuringly gender apolitical, more of a comment on the absurdity of life.

I initially released the book as text only without illustrations. Despite finding an amazing influencer in sex historian, Dr Kate Lister, on Twitter and her retweets of excerpts from the book going viral, book sales on various publishing platforms were low.

A few years later I wondered if an illustrated version might be a better sell. I have an old mate and ex-work colleague and fellow substandard impersonator of Des Lynam, Simon Thompson, a fantastic illustrator, portrait artist and book designer, who shared the same sense of humour, liked the book and agreed to illustrate and design Sperm & Eggs for a 50/50 share in any royalties we might earn from the relaunched illustrated title.

We wanted to see if there was an alternative to Amazon’s self-publishing service – Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) – for creating paperback, hardcover and ebook versions of your book. However, our research showed strongly in favour of first-time self-publishers using a company that squirrels vast sums of money into offshore havens and offers bathroom facilities for its delivery people in the shape of repurposed Evian bottles jettisoned onto hard shoulders. KDP allows you to choose which genre your readers will search to find you so that you can, as we have been, in the top 20 bestsellers for the rather niche genre, ‘Theories of Humour’, but 2,000 plus in the wider genre ‘Satires’. KDP also allowed us to set a publication date in advance so that we could plan a book launch campaign promoting the book on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

All very well EXCEPT in our case when we wanted to delete my original text-only edition of Sperm & Eggs so shoppers would buy the new, illustrated version instead of the old one by mistake. KDP won’t let you delete a title, but ‘unpublish’ it instead. To do this, you have to request KDP to unpublish your book using the email address you set up your KDP account with in the first instance. 40 emails later and it was confirmed that the email address associated with my KDP account was someone called Sharon. Either our account had been hacked or Amazon had some malfunction in their system. Had she known about it, Shazzer might well have experienced Imposter Syndrome.

Simon and I took a calculated gamble by taking out a full-page advert in Viz, the readership of which we thought would be a targeted audience. It was worth a punt, especially as we had timed our launch for 6 weeks before Xmas. So far, we have seen only 19 sales in total. We still have faith in the book and I’m looking now to try and find influencers who might endorse Sperm & Eggs. You never know what might spark sales, what might be the toilet scholars next must-read.

Sperm & Eggs is presented in three volumes. The first is Sperm & Eggs – Attraction, covering the initial phase of the sex cells herding the procreators together. The second is Sperm & Eggs – Interaction, the third is Sperm & Eggs – Relationships. They are a must read for those who wish to know why they do what they do and then blame something else.

Sperm & Eggs – Attraction can be found now in paperback and hardcover versions here on Amazon.

INDUSTRY JUDGES AWARD WINNER

AUDIENCE AWARD WINNER

INDUSTRY JUDGES AWARD WINNER

AUDIENCE AWARD WINNER

This July, The Comedy Crowd teamed up with The Awkward Yeti creator Nick Seluk to launch an exciting new comic writing competition. We waited with baited breath to see what you comedians and funny people would come up with, and you did not disappoint!

We had heaps of fantastic entries from across the globe, just as many laughs, and probably the most fun judging process ever (and you guys sure didn’t make it an easy choice for Nick!). We’re now excited announce the results . . .

The winner of our 2022 Heart and Brain Comic Challenge is Bad Medicine, whose two brilliant comics have come in joint first place 🎉

Bad Medicine are a sketch troupe who perform and teach in Washington DC. You can follow them on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, and check out their sketches on their YouTube channel.

And that’s not all! Nick selected five fab runners up too. They each join The Comedy Crowd Top Talent Group (find out more about that here):

Congratulations to our Heart and Brain Comic Challenge winner and runners up! Make sure to check out the creators via the links above, and Nick Seluk on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook for daily hilarity in comic form. Big thanks to Nick for creating the Heart and Brain Challenge comic design and for judging the challenge, and thank you to everyone who submitted a comic and made the event a great one 👏

Now, we may be wrapping up this challenge, but fear not! We’ll be back with more opportunities very soon. If you want to stay tuned with that sort of thing, plus all sorts of inspiration and how tos for creators, then get yourself signed up to The Comedy Crowd’s free weekly newsletter.

by Ailish McCarty (@thesleepycomedian)

Hey everyone! Very excited to be submitting pieces to the Comedy Crowd, a fantastic platform that encourages creativity and showcasing comic talent. I’m writing a series of how comics can increase their brand online through my own trial and error. Tiktok has managed to outshine Instagram in terms of online content and can be a very powerful tool when it comes to approaching promoters and agencies. The thing to keep in mind about your Tiktok channel, is that it is a marathon and not a sprint. You will need to post a couple of videos a week, and the platform boosts creators that engage with other pages in order to boost a community online. Be patient and its better to put an idea online than to be quiet.

To get the ball rolling, I’ve listed a couple of do’s and don’ts when it comes to Tiktok to help comics boost their exposure on the platform.

DO’S

• Unless you have been living under a rock in the last year, odds are you’ve heard of TikTok. It is a video editing application that sky rocketed in the pandemic. The app promotes short videos in order to enable users to scroll through their for you page and absorb higher amounts of content. If your videos are 7 seconds long, it has been proven that Tiktok will push your video to reach more users

• The algorithm changes constantly. This is because recreations and sounds that go viral have a short shelf life. If you notice a sound is trending, make notes and see if you can hop on the trend while the algorithm is pushing it. If you hop on a trend too late, you will not have the same exposure as early initiators

• Do engage with the comments on your videos. This tricks the platform into thinking that your video is topical as it is reporting high levels of activity (comments), when all that you’re doing at the end of the day is thanking people for watching your content. TikTok boosts all activity when it comes to engaging with your community, so remember to like the comments and reply to them

• As I’ve mentioned, building a community is at the forefront of Tiktoks platform. Leave comments on other users videos and follow friends. This leads TikTok to avoid perceiving your account as a bot.

• Use the same username as your other socials so that its easy for people to find you on Instagram, twitter, facebook and Youtube.

DON’TS

• In the previous section, I mentioned jumping on trends in order to get your video boosted on the platform. Avoid creating a page where all you’re contributing is miming. This lowers the value of your content for followers – diversify. Post your own content as well as trends

• For the love of god – don’t tweet on TikTok. It is a video platform that promotes, you’ve guessed it – VIDEOS! If you want to post pictures, go to instargam or Twitter

• Don’t post reaction videos unless you have a following over 20,000. Nobody cares

• And last but not least, don’t lose hope in going viral. I was using the app for 18 months and following these steps before I got huge exposure. Be patient and be consistent

In our next blog post, I will discuss hashtags, so be sure to keep an eye out!

Check out Ailish’ superb comic stylings on her TikTok account – @thesleepycomedian

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This video, by Sven Pape of the excellent ‘This Guy Edits‘ YouTube channel is an incredibly valuable insight into comedy creation through the eyes of an editor, specifically Roger Nygard, who has worked on ‘Veep’ and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’.

He talks about a number of key lessons for editing comedy, and many of these should be considered throughout all stages of the creative process:

1. Yes, and…
How to apply the rule of improv to make sure you explore all options for creating the funniest scene.

2. Setup is primary
When a joke isn’t working, the problem is almost always in the setup, not the punchline.

3. Plot over jokes
Funny moments that emerge from situations are far more impactful than a nicely writen quip or pun.

4. Faster is funnier
Why pacing is key, and usually the faster the better. There’s a great example from Veep in the video.

5. Find the button
The button is the biggest moment of the scene, and it won’t necessarily come at the end of the script. The scene needs to be structured to optimise it.

6. Trim the fat
‘The enemy of comedy is the unnecessary pause’ says Nygard.

7. Cut Wide
Wider shots give greater possibilities for reaction and body language, but there are also times when you want to cut closer.

8. Feature every frame
In particular, how to frame a punchline to make sure it lands.

9. Keep it real
Why it’s so important to achieve authenticity in the final cut.

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This week’s featured creator is Holly Hall, the newly crowned winner of the BBC New Comedy Award’s Digital Comedian of The Year!

Click here to read more »

This week’s featured creator is Ania Magliano, one of the 4 four regular writers on the ‘Have I Got News For You’ Twitter account.

Click here to read more »

This week’s featured creator is Izzy Radford. Izzy is a bold, young and exciting new writer who leads the Scripted department for TV production company ‘Ten66’.

Click here to read more »