Why “Dying is Easy” is a fitting title for Joe Hill and Martin Simmonds’ comedy crime comic
“Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” Readers of IDW Publishing’s first issue of Dying is Easy from writer Joe Hill and artist Martin Simmonds may be familiar with the phrase that inspired the comic’s title. The phrase has been around so long that its provenance is disputed; its origin is a mystery, and an investigation leads to the words of multiple entertainers and an appreciation for the intensity and craft of doing comedy. The phrase’s mystery and meaning make it an apt inspiration for the title of a comedy crime comic.
The debut issue of Dying is Easy features Syd “Shit-Talk” Homes, a former homicide detective who now makes his living as a comedian. Comedy writer Mel Tolkin once opined that good comedy stems from dissatisfaction with the world, and Syd and his associates have a lot of dissatisfaction — with fellow comedian Carl Dixon in particular. Dixon is stealing the other comedians’ jokes; his career is on the rise, while the comedians he steals from struggle to pay their bar tab. They talk about killing him, which leads to an interesting mystery at the issue’s end.
Hill provides great dialogue for his characters. It sounds realistic, like conversations among comedians you would not be surprised to overhear at a comedy club. There is anger and jealousy expressed via humor, reflective of the competition and pressure among artists in comedy.
Comedy is an intense form of entertainment with immediate feedback, as noted by acclaimed comedy actress Imogene Coca:
“Playing comedy is hell. The necessity to have an audience love you is perhaps more overwhelming than in any other form of entertainment. With singing, dancing, acting you don’t know until it’s over if you’ve had acceptance or rejection. The comic knows sooner. The audience laughs or it doesn’t.”
Actor and director Jonathan Lynn argues that this intensity inspires the aggressive parlance of comedians:
“Everybody who does comedy for a living is concerned about audience aggression. Consider the language comedians use. When their act goes well and gets big laughs they say, ‘I killed them. I knocked ’em dead. I slayed them!’ When they get no laughs they say, ‘I died.’ This accurately represents how they feel. The language tells us that the comedians feel that they are in a life-and-death struggle with their audience. For a comedian, comedy means ‘kill or be killed.’ The comedian and the comedy are in a fight to the death with the audience. A draw is not a satisfactory outcome for either side. You have to ‘knock ’em dead.’”
It is this intensity and pressure that makes comedy the perfect art form to explore via the genre of crime fiction. Known for his work in the horror genre, with novels such as NOS4A2 and Horns and comics like Locke & Key, Hill acknowledges that Dying is Easy is an opportunity for him to explore the crime genre and honor some of his favorite authors: “Dying is Easy gave me a chance to try my hand at a genre I love… and also allowed me to pay tribute to the poets of pulp, guys like Larry Block and Walter Mosley and Elmore Leonard, who have been inspiring me and blowing my mind for decades.”
In the first issue, Hill sets up an intriguing mystery for the series with interesting characters, and impresses with the jokes that he writes for his protagonist. Syd’s comedy is dark; the former homicide detective seems to be working through the horror of his past career. It is a great narrative technique, as the jokes offer insight into Syd’s past, and such performative therapy is not uncommon among comedians, as noted by comedy writer Lucille Kallen:
“Comedy is hell. Why? Because it doesn’t spring from an objective view of the world. It’s subjective for whoever is producing it. It gives them a chance to express themselves about a situation so unhappy that the only way to handle it is to laugh at it. Take things that are gruesome in their implications and make fun of them and not only do you give yourself an out, you rob those things of their power.”
Simmonds’ artwork (with color assistance from Dee Cunniffe) provides character and atmosphere. Syd’s comedy set is rendered in a nine-panel grid, his facial expressions in each panel engaging the reader, and Simmonds portrays Syd with an alertness and awareness to his surroundings that suggests Syd’s background as a cop, and sadness. The personalities and emotions of the characters are conveyed well. Syd’s world is dark and neon; it seems both seedy and sad, a visual rendering that helps establish the story’s narrative mood.
With the story’s mystery set in the world of comedy, it is fitting that Dying is Easy takes its title from a showbiz phrase with a mysterious origin. Some may recall Peter O’Toole delivering the line “dying is easy, comedy is hard” as character Alan Swann in the 1982 move My Favorite Year, but the actor’s wording was influenced by a phrase that had been around long before the movie came out.
O’Toole credited 19th Century Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean with coining the phrase, as do other sources, while some believe comedian Groucho Marx first said it, or credit comedic actor Stan Laurel or actor Donald Crisp; however, the evidence for these claims is lacking. In a 1982 interview with The New York Times regarding comedy that begins with a discussion of the phrase, comedian Carl Reiner and comedy writer Larry Gelbart differ on the phrase’s origin; Reiner credits Kean, but Gelbart credits another source: “It wasn’t Edmund Kean, it was Edmund Gwenn, who was asked on his death bed how he was doing, and he said, ‘Dying is easy, comedy is hard.’”
The Edmund Gwenn attribution is arguably the most credible, and also the most poignant. The story goes that in 1959, director George Seaton visited his dying friend Gwenn. The two of them had worked together on the movie Miracle on 34th Street; Gwenn played the role for which he is best remembered, Kris Kringle. Speaking to Gwenn on his deathbed, Seaton noted with sadness that dying must be difficult; Gwenn responded with humor, speaking his last words: “Not nearly as difficult as playing comedy.”
And Gwenn would know. Long before he won an Academy Award for playing Santa Claus, Gwenn began his career on the London stage, playing comedic roles for which he received no acclaim. The story of Gwenn’s dying words circulated and evolved in Hollywood circles, with Gwenn’s words eventually remembered as “dying is easy, comedy is hard.”
If the Gwenn story is true, it adds a poignant context and meaning to the phrase. Gwenn’s comment is a joke delivered at a grim moment, meant to provide comfort. But it is also an appreciation of craft expressed by a dying artist, a humorous recognition of the work and risk that goes into making comedy.
This context makes the phrase a fitting inspiration for the title of a crime comic showcasing the intense artistry of comedians. In the first issue of Dying is Easy, Hill and Simmonds craft a crime story that — in the parlance of comedians — kills, and while readers suspect it must be hard work, they make it look easy.
NOTES AND FURTHER READING — The author used the following sources in writing the above review:
“Dying is Easy. Comedy is Hard.” (quoteinvestigator.com, October 26, 2010) — this article provides a thorough analysis of the various attributions given to the phrase “dying is easy, comedy is hard.”
“Playing Comedy is No Laughing Matter” by Fred Ferretti (The New York Times, November 14, 1982) — an interview with various comedy writers and performers from the 1950s television variety program Your Show of Shows on the challenges of performing comedy. In addition to providing the quotes above from Imogene Coca, Lucille Kallen, Mel Tolkin, Carl Reiner, and Larry Gelbart, the article also features commentary from other notable comedians such as Mel Brooks and Sid Caesar.
“Rage, Comedy, and Creativity in Theater” by Jonathan Lynn (Play and Creativity in Psychotherapy, 2018)
“Joe Hill Absolutely Kills with ‘Dying is Easy’” (previewsworld.com, Sept. 20, 2019)
Dying is Easy #1 (IDW Publishing, December 2019)
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