It always struck me as odd when Mitch Clem's "My Stupid Life" would open with Clem performing standup, leading to the comic. Then it hit me:

Both comics and stand-up are used as a way to re-tell funny stories to an audience. So when you have a comic about stand-up it's like comedic reverb; telling the story of someone telling a story.

Would the dialogue from the standup panels be better served as captions over the existing action? Is opening with a panel of stand-up anything more than a "hey look at me I'm also a stand-up comedian" attention grab?