Bad Feeling Podcast # 22 with comedian Mike Lawrence

Mike Lawrence takes his comics dead seriously. The New York comedian not only peppers his stand-up routine with numerous comic references, but he also feels a kinship with superheroes, relating to their often tragic back stories.

“Batman is about a guy in a suit who fights these weird criminals, and that’s the fantastical element of it, but he’s just a really sad dude who can’t get over what happened to him when he was seven,” Lawrence tells us in our interview. “Which is most people who read Batman comics.”

Lawrence’s stand-up is filled with hilarious takes on pop-culture icons, which often relate to real emotions in his life; Sadamantium, the title of his debut stand-up album, is a perfect merging of the geekiness existing alongside real emotional heft (adamantium being the imaginary material Wolverine’s claws are formed from).

We spoke to Mike about his take on the New York vs. LA comedy scenes, getting out-nerded by comic fans, and why he backs Jared Leto’s inked version of the Joker.