Good comedians are funny most of the time. Only the great comedians break the conventions established before them and push the boundaries of what is considered funny.

Mitch Hedberg was a truly great comedian.

If you had told me in 1999 that one day I would pay to see an obviously intoxicated guy who could barely talk stumble over some loosely scripted non-sequiters and occasionally forgo the one-line format only to lose his train of thought three sentences in to a story I would have said you’re crazy. I can’t really say for sure that Mitch Hedberg was a genius consciously masquerading on stage as a confused and inept performer, if aspects of his persona were crafted meticulously to make the jokes themselves funnier, but that was the end result anyhow. And it made for a hilarious act.

I had the pleasure of seeing him live at Tufts in 2005, where completely killed. As is usually the case with the greatest of comedians, however, he was done in by his darker side (read: speedballs (warning: graphic)) just weeks later. But good news for fans has come this week:

Comedienne Lynn Shawcroft, the late Mitch Hedberg’s widow, is relaunching the comedy legend’s website MitchHedberg.net with all new never before seen video, art work, news and much more.

The launch is scheduled to take place during a live event at the Steve Allen Theater in Los Angeles on May 17 with comedians reading and performing in tribute to Hedberg. All proceeds from the event are going towards the Innocence Project, an organization dedicated to utilizing DNA testing to prove wrongfully convicted people’s innoncence.

-Punchline

If you’re like me, you’re still half-waiting for Mitch’s death to be revealed as a hoax (recall that it was reported on April 1). It seems that is not going to happen, but at least the promise of new content is something we can all look forward too. Thanks go out to Lynn for sharing it. As many a YouTube commenter has noted, “I used to miss Mitch Hedberg. I still do, but I used to, too.”

Alright.