Alumni Profile: Sean McCarthy '93, comedy journalist

Résumé: Founder of The Comic’s Comic, a website that covers the American comedy scene. Former stand-up ­comedian. Former writer for the New York Daily News and the Boston Herald. Majored in ­politics with a certificate in American Studies.

IMMERSING ­HIMSELF IN THEIR WORLD
By frequenting shows and hanging around with comics, Sean McCarthy ’93 — founder of The Comic’s Comic, a website (thecomicscomic.com) that covers the comedy world — sees himself as part reporter, part anthropologist. “When I launched the website, I wanted to show that comedy was just as important as any other form of entertainment,” says McCarthy, who created The Comic’s Comic in 2007. By hanging around shows and mingling with comics, McCarthy has had an inside view into their world. “At first, I thought I would be more like a Hunter S. Thomp­son. But I find myself now as a Jane Goodall ... ­seeing them operate in their natural habitat.”

A NATURAL FIT
McCarthy covers stand-up comedians who ­perform live and those on television; reviews ­performances, CDs, and DVDs; and gets the inside scoop on upcoming tours. In the past year McCarthy has run interviews with comics ranging from Michael Ian Black to George Lopez, who discussed the trials and tribulations of producing a comedy tour. Being a comedy journalist is a natural fit for McCarthy. Before focusing on The Comic’s Comic, McCarthy spent more than a decade covering arts and entertainment for newspapers, and until 2005 he was a stand-up comedian himself.

DRAWING ATTENTION TO AN UNDERAPPRECIATED ART
McCarthy is looking to expand The Comic’s Comic, which was named Best Website at the 2011 Excellence in Comedy New York (ECNY) Awards, into a ­podcast (and was hoping to launch it in March). Ultimately, McCarthy wants his website to increase the visibility of the comedy world, which he believes is an underappreciated art form compared to widely covered fields such as music and film. Says McCarthy, “I want to help put comedians in the public spotlight where they belong, with other artists.”