LARB Digital Edition: Humor

Comedians really want to make us cry. The best reaction they can hope to elicit is tears — laughter, sure, but it’s the tears they’re after. Like almost every other human emotion, there is an emoji depicting this phenomenon online: a round yellow face with an absurdly broad, open smile, eyebrows furrowed and eyes pressed closed, a pendulous teardrop dangling from each corner. It’s the face comedia...