1 Joke From The Vault - Uncertain Life #1

I’m off on vacation, so instead of sending five topical jokes each day, I’m sending one joke, episode, comic strip, or sketch, with some explanation of the process that led to its creation. If you notice any spelling errors, I’M ON VACATION, DAMN IT! AIN’T NOTHIN’ I CAN DO ABOUT THAT! WHY ARE YOU BRINGING THIS UP, NOW?

- Tim

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In July or 2020 I launched a series of webcomics called Uncertain Life. The globe was in a pandemic, and live comedy seemed to be fading away. I’ll never forget the piece Roy Wood Jr. wrote for Vulture that year titled It’s Time for Stand-ups to Prepare for the Worst. I consider Roy to be one of the smartest and most strategic working comics, so I knew a headline like that wasn’t written lightly.

I’d already grown distant to standup at that point. I’m in awe of the standup comedians who enter the TV writing space and still find the time and energy to do standup simultaneously. For me, when I landed that first TV writing gig, standup took a serious backseat. I wanted to learn how to do the TV writing thing correctly. Treat it like a job instead of a lucky fluke. When that first gig was nearing its end, I told myself that I’d try striking a balance focusing on standup in a more earnest way in New York while writing for The Tonight Show. The pandemic changed all of that.

So, when animation freak Grant Lindahl (a former co-worker/friend from my Comedy Central days) reached out saying he’d love to collaborate on something, I figured a comic strip would be a decent replacement for standup. A way to release original comedy in a regular basis. Below is the very first issue.

It’s very busy, and was displayed panel by panel on Instagram, which was the preferred space for viewing at the time.

I’m proud of this as the first issue. Grant established a great style and it captures the weirdness of quarantine, which kind of matches the weirdness of this very moment for us all in America.

We made 100 issues of this crazy series, and I hope to bring it back sometime in the near future.

A bit more about Uncertain Life below this paywall, but for more projects I’ve been a part of, click here!

You can also check out my You Are The Genre interview with Grant here:

[Grant Lindahl] Is The Genre