Erik Abriss
VICE
Los Angeles, CA, United States
Contact Erik
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Past articles by Erik:
'Barry' the Hitman Might Be Bill Hader's Best Character Yet
The former 'SNL' star's new HBO series is gallows humor at its darkest. → Read More
Inside the Evolution of ‘2 Dope Queens’ with Phoebe Robinson
Comedian, television writer, actress, and New York Times best-selling author are enviable titles to have associated with your name by the young age of 33. Phoebe Robinson, ever the consummate multi-hyphenate, has not only achieved all of those aforementioned high-water marks, but she’s currently adding one more honorific to her professional index: Podcast Royalty. Robinson [...] → Read More
Bo Burnham and the Art of the Standup Special
When Chris Rock abruptly announced yesterday that Tamborine — his first of two intensely anticipated Netflix specials — would be premiering in less than 24 hours, comedy fans let out a collective “Finally!” Not only was Rock’s record-breaking deal with the streaming goliath announced all the way back in 2016, but he spent the majority [...] → Read More
David Wain Brings the History of ‘National Lampoon’ to Life with ‘A Futile and Stupid Gesture’
David Wain is no stranger to disrupting an unsuspecting comedy mainstream. Before solidifying himself as a household name as the writer-director behind cult classics (Wet Hot American Summer, The Ten) and commercial hits (Role Models) alike, Wain and his pioneering sketch comedy troupe The State staged a comedic coup at MTV back in the early [...] → Read More
Talking Faith, Standup, and Season 2 of ‘Crashing’ with Pete Holmes
As a verb, Crashing — the title of comedian Pete Holmes’s semi-autobiographical HBO series — took on multiple conceptual connotations throughout season 1. Our protagonist Pete, a naïve and sheltered evangelical Christian, watched his life come crashing down after discovering his wife having an affair with a bohemian bro named Leif. As an aspiring amateur comedian [...] → Read More
The Ten Best Comedy Series of 2017
“Peak TV” and “Prestige Television” are lazy and lame labels for a number of reasons. For one, they’re cavernous, catch-all constructs that display a total disregard for how television is made. They also conflate volume and variety with inherent quality. So the television landscape is actually less of an oasis and more of a desert [...] → Read More
The 15 Funniest Twitter Accounts of 2017
Remember laughter? Hot Take: 2017 was Extremely Bad. There, glad we got that out the way. Sure, the president might be a racist robber baron, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t also a misogynistic, science-denying, lava-cake-brained internet troll. His pernicious, poisonous policies have already caused irreparable harm to the environment and to the physical and [...] → Read More
Listen to the Latest Episode of VICE's Daily Podcast
We chat about the growing group of senior weed users in the country. → Read More
Judd Apatow Explains His Return to Stand-Up Comedy
'The Return,' now on Netflix, is the writer-director's first stand-up special. → Read More
All Are Welcome in the Church of Maria Bamford
2017 has been a bumper crop year for Maria Bamford. First she released Old Baby, her hilariously heartfelt hourlong Netflix special that not only packed an emotional punch but also pushed the envelope by toying with the structure of standup specials (the venues in which she performs change and grow, allowing her to deconstruct the [...] → Read More
A New Season of 'HAMILTON'S PHARMACOPEIA' Is Coming to VICELAND
Host Hamilton Morris is back to uncover the history behind the world's most extraordinary mind-altering substances. → Read More
Dana Carvey Remembers the Brilliant Failure of 'The Dana Carvey Show'
We talk to the comedy legend about the ahead-of-its-time sketch show and the Hulu doc about it. → Read More
The Philosophy of JB Smoove
“Jolly” and “optimistic” aren’t descriptors you’d readily associate with your average hardened veteran comics, but then again, JB Smoove has never been an average comedian. The energetic, frenetic funnyman who rose to fame using his entire body as his instrument on the Def Comedy Jam stage has become even more of a household name after [...] → Read More
Richard Lewis on ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ Standup, and the Prism of Pain
Richard Lewis has no problem with oversharing. It’s one of the many defining characteristics that made him such a trailblazing voice in standup comedy when he hit the scene in the late 1970s. The humorist hybrid of Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce, Lewis’ standup style serves as the genetic link from the more abstract comics [...] → Read More
On the Verge: Jaboukie Young-White
Welcome to our series On the Verge, where our contributors highlight comedians they feel are ready for their next big break. Whether they’re already working in television or still waiting to land their breakout gig, these are just some of the comedians we’d like to see more of over the coming years -- ideally with a show, film, or [...] → Read More
'Lemon' Will Make You Feel Terrible, and That's the Point
Janicza Bravo and Brett Gelman talk about their unsettling new film, and why Twitter is a racist cesspool. → Read More
‘Ingrid Goes West’: A Dark Comedy That Shines an Empathetic Light on Digital Addiction
“What’s your biggest emotional wound?” That question, posed to our anti-heroine Ingrid Thorburn roughly 30 minutes into Ingrid Goes West, should carry the weight of the world. It’s the type of question that demands self-interrogation -- one that requires an emotional honesty and a cognitive courage to confront. Instead the characters treat it like a [...] → Read More
Channing Tatum Told Us About 'Comrade Detective,' the Weirdest Show of 2017
Everyone's favorite actor explains the origins of his strange, pro-Communist Amazon comedy. → Read More
Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler: The Ultimate Comedy Team
Other than a mere year of overlap on Saturday Night Live (which produced one of the greatest sketches of all time, “Short Shorts for the USA”) and mostly isolated screen time in the no-one-knows-what-it-means-but-it’s-provocative Blades of Glory, Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler have never performed together in a proper two-hander. Which is no laughing matter [...] → Read More
Talking ‘Baby Driver’ and the Art of Visual Comedy with Edgar Wright
Few mainstream filmmakers treat the full range of cinema as their playground quite like Edgar Wright does. With each film he releases, the British director (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) —known for his innovative yet playful visual language — pushes the boundaries of what we’ve come to accept about the limitations [...] → Read More