Pulp Comics: Dave Attell

Long before Insomniac made him an after-hours television fixture, Dave Attell brought his club act to Comedy Central’s Pulp Comics. The late-nineties series operated on a distinct premise: taking a comedian’s stage act and interspersing the routine with stylized, original short films that visualize their jokes. For a comic like Attell, whose material naturally gravitates toward the seedy and cynical, seeing his premises acted out gives the half-hour a strange, fever-dream quality. Premiering in August 1997, the set catches him in a transitional sweet spot. He was a few years out of the Saturday Night Live writers’ room and still building his national profile. He leans heavily on the steady, pessimistic delivery that was already earning him a reputation in New York as a definitive comic’s comic.