Overnight, Punchline Magazine's founder Dylan P. Gadino revealed to his readers that next week, his site formally will disappear, and then reappear under the new moniker of LaughSpin.
Gadino writes:
"For close to a year now, we’ve been revamping, redesigning and rebranding the site I launched, along with graphic designer Bill Bergmann, on Sept. 15, 2005. During the relaunch process, I decided that as much as I love the name “Punchline Magazine,” it was time for a change. I wanted a new name– something wholly singular, fun and appropriate. I also wanted to lose “magazine,” since, in these ever-evolving technological times, that word is quickly losing its value. It also might not best explain some of the other comedy endeavors we have planned. More on that later."
For one thing, it's difficult to put out comedy CDs and DVDs under the Punchline name when comedy clubs around the country already are called Punchline. And "the close to a year now" is how long it has been since Salient Media (aka comedy management team The Collective) made a deal to acquire Gadino's site. It'll be interesting to see how the site changes both cosmetically and substantively. The Collective's highest-profile clients include Eddie Izzard and have included Andy Dick, Katt Williams and Greg Giraldo — although their digital entertainment arm also has snagged a number of the young stars of YouTube, including Lucas Cruikshank (Fred), Justine Ezarik (iJustine), Dane Boedigheimer (The Annoying Orange), Michael Buckley (What The Buck Show), and Freddie Wong.
Meanwhile, our friends over at comedy podcasting network Earwolf announced that they'd get more involved in the blogging business themselves.
As Earwolf's Jeff Ullrich wrote yesterday:
"You can look forward to interviews, featured live shows, behind the scenes pieces, podcasting news and comedic pieces. I’m so excited. It’s been on my list for a while, and when I met and got to know Joel Mandelkorn, I realized I found the perfect person to pull my vision together and make it even better. So I asked him to join Earwolf as the editor of this blog."
Mandelkorn already has been blogging about podcasts with his Plop List site, and produces and writes about comedy in Los Angeles with CleftClips. Earwolf also has signed on its first contributor for the blog: The AV Club's Steve Heisler.
And so, the Comedy Boom Dot Com continues to expand online as much with covering the Y2K.1 edition of the boom as it is in producing it.
Wonder if I'll find anything up my sleeves? Stay tuned.