Is a new generation ready for Bill Hicks? The deceased, quietly controversial comic, who smiled sweetly while launching socially significant smart-bombs at his audience? Comedy Dynamics, owned by New Wave Entertainment, believes so, and on April 27, it will release Hicks's Relentless concert feature from 1992 in 500 theaters nationwide followed by the release of Hicks's entire comedy output in digital form.
"We got lucky and were able to strike a deal with his estate," says Brian Volk-Weiss, president of Comedy Dynamics. "Never before, under one roof, has so much Hicks product been available. With the okay from Bill's family, his comedy specials will be streaming, his CDs will be available, and there [will be a] one-of-a-kind boxset of Bill's work. With luck, people will see a guy who wasn't just funny, but helped to change the course of comedy."
For Hicks, no topics were off-limits—religion, smoking, abortion, drugs—and he had a spiritual and real-life kinsman in fellow comedian Marc Maron, who's known for his podcast and Maron show on IFC. Maron not only knew Hicks, but has an insightful take on the comic who died in 1994, at 32, of pancreatic cancer. Maron, despite having his own voice and hilariously frustrated persona, studied Hicks well.
"Bill was really a wordsmith and lyrical writer," Maron tells Esquire. "His descriptions, and his phrasing, were very unique. Bill put a lot of thought and effort into his turning a phrase. He also had great, elongated periods of silence that built momentum."
Maron, who's about the same age that Hicks would've been had he lived, suggests that, as funny as Hicks could be, he was absolutely "writerly" in his presentation. "Bill was absolutely eloquent and really highbrow, too, which is unusual in our profession. If you listen to some of his descriptions, you're going to hear expressions like 'arcing ropes of jism,' when he's talking about porn. That's a hell of a description."
Arguably, what stands out most in Maron's description of his old friend is how, unlike most comics, Hicks wasn't desperately eager to please the audience. In fact, he didn't seem to care whether they were pleased. And if you watch old clips on YouTube, you can see that sometimes they weren't. "Bill was very much in his own time zone," Maron says. "He went through his entire presentation, whether people were responding or not. There are a few guys who took his approach to details and description, but not many. It's hard. The stuff Bill wrote is positively Rabelaisian.
"If I could say anything about Hicks, it's that he was doing his best to destroy anything he perceived as hypocrisy," Maron concludes. "While also revealing stuff that was overly embraced by moralizers. He was a misanthropic moralist, who did his best to get to the bottom of religious hypocrisy, moral hypocrisy, and societal hypocrisy. But he also made you laugh when he did it. That's a tough trick. But it's what Bill did."
For more information about the Bill Hicks theatrical release, digital downloads, and boxset, contact comedydynamics@nwe.com.
