Is Netflix Taking Over Stand up Comedy?

Stand up comedy has been a difficult profession since its inception. Comics would spend years, often decades, paying their dues and performing in small clubs to thankless audiences, dealing with hecklers, and occasionally getting stiffed by club owners and show promoters. While the world of stand up comedy isn’t necessarily getting any easier, it certainly is changing, and much of that change is due in no small part to Netflix.

Before the days of on-demand viewing a television special was considered the holy grail for stand up comics. HBO had positioned themselves as an innovator and industry leader with 40 years worth of experience in the game, but specials were often reserved for a select few. The playing field started opening up thanks to Comedy Central, who for the past two decades have offered the opportunity to lesser known but still hilarious comics.

Enter Netflix. Although they face steep competition and an uphill battle thanks to imitators and licensing rights threatening the loss of existing content, they’re still the biggest player in the game of on-demand content. And with millions of people around the globe flipping through Netflix deciding what to watch, comedians of all kinds have found themselves being discovered exclusively through the service. Add to that the fact that more comedy specials are being produced now than ever before, many of them exclusively for Netflix, and you have the makings of a bid for comedic domination. It’ll be an interesting, if not hilarious, revolution to watch.

Looking for more comedic reads? Visit our online library at www.flyeread.com for a wide variety of ebooks, audiobooks, music, and more, accessible anytime from your favorite devices.

Hilarious Reads by Comic Book Writers

There are certainly some writers beyond measure is the world of comedy literature, and many of them have come to create seemingly endless catalogs of hilarious reads. But a good laugh in book form can occasionally come from unexpected sources, and certain authors from the comic book world definitely serve as proof. Here are three hilarious books written by authors from within the wonderful world of comics.

Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. Known for such groundbreaking titles as Transmetropolitan (1997–2002), Global Frequency (2002–2004), Red (2003–2004), Trees (2014–present), and Injection (2015–present), Ellis is nothing short of a legend in the comic book world. Crooked Little Vein, his first foray into the world of novels, puts a hilarious spin on the hardboiled detective genre.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Although both prolific authors, neither defined solely for their work in the comic book genre, Pratchett has has his Discworld novels adapted into graphic novel form, while Gaiman’s invaluable contribution comes in the form of his legendary Sandman series. Their geniuses combine in this hilarious parody about the birth of the son of Satan.

Romeo and/or Juliet: A Chooseable-Path Adventure by Ryan North. North earned considerable acclaim for Marvel’s The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, and after a massively successful Kickstarter campaign for a choose-your-own-adventure Hamlet novel followed it up with Romeo and/or Juliet, a similarly hilarious adaptation.

Looking for more laughs? Visit our online library at www.flyeread.com for a wide variety of hilarious ebooks, audio books, and music.