Paying it forward: Marc Maron’s five comedians to watch in 2012

Marc Maron has benefited greatly in the past couple of years since he began his WTF podcast and earned not only much-deserved respect but a newfound audience, and in the comedy issue of Paste magazine, Maron is paying it forward with his five comedians to watch in 2012.

And they are…with an excerpt of Maron’s thoughts about each:

Nate Bargatze

“I had not seen him, or really knew of him then, and I hadn’t seen him in years, but I was up in Grand Rapids doing the Gilda Fest, and I watched this guy do four sets and he made me laugh at four sets. I’ve been doing this a long time and I don’t laugh at comedy that easily. I just thought he was fucking hilarious.”

Mary Mack

“She’s just got a very interesting, almost-childlike way of looking at the world. She plays musical instruments and sometimes lets the audience sing along with stuff. There’s just really nobody I’ve ever seen like her.”

Brent Weinbach

“I think that he’s doing something that some people try to do because they want to be weird, but I think he’s very talented and very funny and he’s genuinely peculiar.”

Sean Patton

“He just has momentum to him. As he continues to write more and more, he’s going to be an unstoppable once he fully develops.”

Myq Kaplan

“You know I used to really bust on him a little bit about how he makes such anally constructed jokes work, but he makes it work. He’s really evolved into having a unique disposition on stage and kind of a quirky delivery and even his posture has formed into a comedic being.”

Read the article for Maron’s full praise for this quintet of stand-ups.

Also in the Paste comedy issue:

  • Interviews and features with Aziz Ansari, Hannibal Buress, Natasha Leggero, H. Jon Benjamin, Garfunkel and Oates.
  • New stuff from Reggie Watts and classic stuff from Woody Allen.
  • A story told from 15 comedic Twitter feeds.
  • A look at pro wrestlers turned comedians.
  • 10 essential podcasts besides WTF.
  • Reviews of Kyle Kinane, John Mulaney, Patrice Oneal and Michael Ian Black.

 

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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