Hannibal Buress

Chicago-raised stand-up Hannibal Buress had to overcome a few things early in his career: His delivery is the epitome of patience-trying—it sometimes takes a few minutes of his wry monotone to figure out what the hell he’s talking about—and the material is mostly left-field observational stuff that’s equal parts inviting and off-putting. (“I’d love to kick a pigeon,” begins one head-scratcher.) But Buress has gotten sharper by the day, to the point where his jokes about fire SUVs and “the next big blind guy” are no longer odd, but instead seen as windows into his wonderfully skewed sensibilities. He’s gotten substantially more popular fairly quickly too, earning “Best Club Comic” from The Comedy Awards and releasing his first hour-long comedy special, Animal Furnace, earlier this year.

Updated 06/11/2012