"You’ve got a nice style and personality about you.” — George Carlin

Julie Seabaugh is a documentarian and author who chronicles the world of stand-up comedy. With Emmy-nominated filmmaker Nick Scown she directed September 2021 feature documentary Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11 for Vice. She is creator, producer, and story editor of Are We Good?, a feature documentary on Marc Maron that played both SXSW and Tribeca in 2025. A two-part documentary on the legendary Mitch Hedberg debuts in 2026. As a professional journalist for more than two decades, Seabaugh previously covered the art form for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, GQ, The A.V. Club and numerous alt-weeklies. Her expertise on modern roasting culminated in 2018 book Ringside at Roast Battle, while 2022’s 50 Years of the Comedy Store vinyl boxed set features her liner notes. The comedian memoir Beyond the Promised Land, written with Byron Bowers, is out from Grand Central Publishing in summer 2026.

Seabaugh grew up on a farm in rural Missouri and discovered stand-up when Dave Attell performed during her senior year of college. Way back in 2003, she founded and edited the criminally ahead of its time print and online comedy magazine Two Drink Minimum.

Among other writing highlights, simultaneous Bridget Everett Village Voice and Roast Battle L.A. Weekly cover stories ran on both sides of the country the week of September 8, 2014.  

Having previously served as A&E staff writer at Las Vegas Weekly, Seabaugh won a 2015 Nevada Press Association Award for a cover profile tracing the downward health spiral of The Amazing Johnathan. “It’s obvious the author is a wordsmith,” judges wrote. “Every sentence is well thought out. It’s full of lively adjectives and truly paints a picture of what the Amazing Johnathan looks like, what he’s experiencing and how he got to his current state. I felt like he was sitting next to me, boisterously telling his story.”

Her love of Mitch Hedberg led to producing/hosting 2020’s Hope on Top: A Mitch Hedberg Oral History for SiriusXM’s Comedy Central channel. Positive Connections: A Brody Stevens Oral History debuted on SiriusXM’s RawDog channel in February 2023. The collection A Tight 20: Two Decades of Comedy Journalism is available now.

Interviewees over the years include George Carlin, Joan Rivers, Carl Reiner, Don Rickles, Mitch Hedberg, Eddie Izzard, Christopher Guest, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Drew Carey, Howie Mandel, Jimmy Kimmel, Key & Peele, Judd Apatow, Lily Tomlin, Seth Meyers, Wanda Sykes and Zach Galifianakis.

Festival judging/coverage/panelist/misc. includes the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Just for Laughs Montreal, SXSW, San Francisco Sketchfest, New York Comedy Festival, Just for Laughs Toronto, Sasquatch, Grand Rapids' Gilda's LaughFest, Montana's Big Sky Comedy Festival, Austin's Moontower, Portland's Bridgetown, the Seattle International Comedy Competition, Riot L.A., Nashville's Wild West Comedy Festival, Atlanta's Laughing Skull, Skankfest Las Vegas and the Palm Springs International Comedy Festival.

Photo credits: Troy Conrad