Jourdain Fisher
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Jourdain Fisher is a Brooklyn-based comedian who has written for 50 Cent’s BET sketch comedy series, 50 Central, appeared on After Midnight, and performed stand-up on both Comedy Central and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. His debut self-produced hour Bits & Pieces premiered exclusively on 800 Pound Gorilla’s new streaming service, , in May 2026 with a worldwide YouTube release slated for June 2026. Fisher sat down with me over Zoom to talk about the economics of stand-up comedy today, how much the comedy landscape has changed in the decade since...
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Emmy Blotnick
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Emmy Blotnick is a New York-based comedian who has written for and performed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. You may also have heard her joking multiple times on NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! or seen her performing stand-up on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Conan. Her writing credits are even longer and more varied, including not just Colbert and Fallon, but also The President Show, Mel Brooks’s History of the World: Part II, English Teacher, Bust Down, Pause with Sam Jay, Nikki & Sara Live, Not Safe with Nikki Glaser, plus a few...
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Leslie Liao
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
When Netflix held its first-ever Netflix Is A Joke festival in Los Angeles 2022, stand-up comedian Leslie Liao was working for Netflix in human resources and had to buy tickets to see shows in the festival. For the second Netflix Is A Joke fest in 2024, Liao had just quit her day job, and her former Netflix co-workers paid to see her headline a festival show. In May 2026, she was already booked elsewhere, and celebrating the release of her debut comedy special, Silky Smooth, out now through 800 Pound Gorilla Media. She caught up with me over Zoom to talk about the art of writing hyperlocal...
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Nish Kumar
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
If you listen to Pod Save The UK or The Bugle, or you watch Taskmaster, then I don’t have to explain Nish Kumar to you. The British comedian — twice nominated for Best Show at the Edinburgh Fringe — sat down with me over Zoom to talk about his new stand-up special, Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe, out now via 800 Pound Gorilla Media. Kumar spoke about how this special allowed him to experience America in a new way, how Chris Rock inspired him as a teenager, how podcasts have distorted the economic reality of making a living as a comedian, algorithms as the new gatekeepers, and how it...
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Kelly MacFarland
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Kelly MacFarland is a stand-up comedian with TV credits on NBC, Comedy Central and AXS Gotham Comedy Live. MacFarland also has performed at Denis Leary’s Comics Come Home at Boston’s TD Garden, and more recently put out a half-hour with Dry Bar Comedy and a set with Don’t Tell Comedy. Along the way, she also has released three comedy albums — her newest, Hot Gnome, she self-financed as a video special on YouTube in 2025, with the album released in April 2026 via Blonde Medicine. Kelly and I caught up over Zoom to talk about why and how she has so many newer projects — another...
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Joe Dombrowski
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Named one of Variety's Top 10 Comics to Watch in 2025, Joe Dombrowski first broke through in 2017 when he went viral for pranking his fourth-grade students and landed multiple appearances on Ellen. Now with more than 1.3 million Instagram followers, and another 1.6 million on TikTok, Dombrowski released his first hour special, Dad On Arrival, in April 2026 through 800 Pound Gorilla Media. The comedian sat down with me over Zoom to talk about those pre-Ellen years, when he was moonlighting as a spin instructor, and summer coordinator at the Detroit Zoo in addition to developing his stand-up,...
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Troy Walker
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Troy Walker is a writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live! who also wrote for Kimmel’s turns hosting the Oscars, but he came up through the Denver comedy scene while also graduating from law school and working in money laundering compliance. Walker returned to Denver to record his debut comedy album at Comedy Works. Esquire debuted in February 2026 via Blonde Medicine, with Walker joking about growing up in Colorado and eventually making his way in LA. Walker sat down with me over Zoom to talk even more about that, explaining what has made the Comedy Works in Denver one of the nation’s premier comedy...
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Maggie Winters
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Maggie Winters is a South Side Chicago comedian who came up in improv with iO and as a stand-up through Lincoln Lodge’s FemCom program, and she first found a wider audience online with millions of views for her front-facing character videos on TikTok and Instagram. 2023 was a breakthrough year for Winters, as she appeared as a recurring character assisting the youth group in HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones, as well as a “New Face” at Montreal’s Just For Laughs. That same year, she debuted her one-person show, Marguerite, which she took to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024, and...
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Mark Vigeant
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Mark Vigeant blends clown, improv, physical theater, and multimedia to create interactive comedy shows such as The Best Man Show, which he took to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024 and 2025, and released as a special on Dropout in February 2026. Vigeant is based in Los Angeles, but started his career with the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City where he performed improv and sketch, played Trumpet Boy for The Special Without Brett Davis, hosted a series online for Seriously.TV, and earned himself a screen-test audition for Saturday Night Live. Vigeant caught up with me over Zoom to talk about...
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Jamie Lee
The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First
Jamie Lee is an Emmy-winning writer and producer on Apple TV’s Ted Lasso who began her comedy career in the press office of Comedy Central. Her first break in front of the camera came via panel shows, most notably MTV’s Girl Code, as well as performances on both Conan and The Late Late Show with James Corden. As a writer, her credits have included HBO’s Crashing, TV Land’s Teachers, Peocock’s Killing It, Hulu’s Chad Powers, and of course, Ted Lasso. Her book Weddiculous, led to her starring in the Netflix series, The Wedding Coach. But her current passion project is a stage show,...
info_outlineJeff Garlin is a comedian and actor who honed his chops in the 1980s with The Second City, alongside the likes of Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris. You know him from playing Larry David’s friend Jeff Greene on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, as well as playing the patriarch of the ABC sitcom family, The Goldbergs. You’ve heard his voice in such Pixar classics as Wall-E and Toy Story 3 and 4, and he has written and directed three feature films: I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With, Dealin’ With Idiots, and Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie. Garlin goes even deeper into his movie credits during his 2019 Netflix comedy special: Our Man In Chicago. But as he’ll tell you then and now, nothing is more fun than making it up as we go along, so let’s get to it!