Kickstarter

About Tragic Relief: Enough "horsing around." Tragic Relief is a bleak, absurd comedy webseries, the first season of which will consist of 12 (mostly very short) vignettes with no character or narrative continuity, all written and ready to shoot. Episodes are linked by the motif—if I may!—of people being pummeled by the world at every turn; getting kicked when they’re down then blamed for crying about it.

Many episodes have the feel of 3-panel comics, and start with a stupid joke or light observation that quickly yield horrible consequences.

Why Give Your Money To Negative Nancies Throwing A Pity Party?: We're not! We're just drawn to comedy featuring people in helpless situations, not laughing at the people but at a world in which these things happen. It's comforting to be reminded that a lot is out of our control, we’re not responsible for all our misfortune, and maybe everyone deserves a bit more sympathy. Cuz we're all in this together, aw!

Cast & Crew: The cast and crew include EXPERIENCED PROFESSIONALS – most of whom are already onboard and a few who've expressed interest should we reach our goal – from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, The Onion, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and other places of that sort! Our core team of producers include co-writer Josh Elmets, Michael Goldburg, and Amelia Thermopolis.

Individual crew people who have expressed interest include director of photography T.J. Misny (Broad City, I Hate Being Single) and directors Matt Klinman (The Onion News Network, Sketch Cram), Jon Friedman (The Jon Friedman Internet Program, Rejection Show), dp, and Michael Goldburg (michaelgoldburg.com). Also, likely script contributions from Matt Klinman and Jordan Clifford (The Moon), art (logo above!) by Patrick Hosmer (heymister.net), and animation by Cole Lanter and Isam Prado. 

Shooting Schedule: We're shooting two weeks in the middle of July and a third week in August, with a goal to start releasing episodes by the end of September.

Origin: “Stop making me want to kill myself,” an Onion staff writer noted on a list of my headlines back when I was interning there. He might have been referring to the quality of the jokes as much as the tone, but it turned out I was writing a lot of sad one-liners. So I took his note in the opposite direction and made it something of a mission statement.

Months ago, my PA job wrapped at MTV2. Having just turned 25 and with nothing to do with myself, a bunch of ideas about helpless people—which had been festering for a while—came vividly rushing out.

Your Money: Will go towards locations, equipment, transportation, special effects, sound, makeup, post-production, animation, food for crew, props, and wages for director of photography and assistant to camera.

We're so unbelievably grateful for any amount you might be inclined to give!