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Comedy, so comic master Steve Martin told us way back in 1979, is not pretty.

That’s also Drew Hastings’s theory of the craft: “All comedy comes from pain, in my opinion and theory,” says the stand-up comedian with his trademark dry, throaty delivery.

“The homelier or uglier or more infirm a comedian is, the more likely they are to be successful.”

It’s an odd statement from the tall, lanky, handsome Hastings, a man who’s confident enough in his appearance that he wears heavy black Elvis Costello glasses, who shows up for his gig at Captain Brien’s Off the Hook Comedy Club wearing a Hugo Boss suit. But Hastings knows where his marketably vile qualities lie, and he plumbs that wellspring in his self-deprecating, erudite, acerbic act.

“I had to find my ugliness and my dysfunction inside my head. Because that’s where my infirmities lie, my disabilities.”

Is he being funny and self-effacing, or earnest? It’s hard to tell, because Hastings onstage is very much like Hastings off: articulate and well-spoken, peppering his commentary with foul (and deliciously inflected) expletives, telling you conversational stories with pointed observations that aren’t so much punch lines as his own bent, hilarious way of looking at something.

That was a bit of a handicap when he first started his act, Hastings admits, back in the ‘80s, when comedians gauged their success among themselves and one another by asking, “How many laughs did you get per minute?” as though there were some guaranteed formula for funny.

He does no yuk-yuk shtick. There’s no infectious Rodney Dangerfield-like catchphrase he parrots (“I get no respect!”). In fact, to look at him, you wouldn’t even know he was a stand-up comedian — think House’s Hugh Laurie crossed with Jack Nicholson, with a professorial vibe.

According to Hastings, he evolved like every other stand-up comic, along what he delineates as a standard, if convoluted, path to finding your onstage persona: First you just try to be funny. Then you’re “too hip for the room,” as he puts it. Then you try to be “relevant.”

“Then you act like what you think a stand-up comedian who is you would act like. Then you act like you being yourself — but you’re still acting. And then ultimately you are yourself.”

This is how a typical Hastings bit goes: Presentation of a theme, deconstruction of the theme, zingy, original, unique observations loosely pertaining to the theme.

An example: Girlfriend problems — fertile, well-trodden ground for comedy — become interwoven into stories about erotic asphyxiation, Viagra, and the challenges of bringing his significant other to live on his isolated 50-acre farm in Ohio. It’s all one long, interconnected monologue, less stand-up than one-man show, a guy free-associating about his life in a way that just happens to be exceptionally funny.

Hastings has had the benefit of rich ground to plow for his anecdotes. Before turning to stand-up at age 32, he ran what he calls “a series of small, borderline scamming businesses” that included a trucking company that turned into a conduit for gay porn and a shredding business that got him into trouble for never actually doing the shredding.

When one of his companies — a high-tech storage business — sold and Hastings was asked to stay on to run it, he suddenly realized “I wasn’t an entrepreneur anymore — I was an administrator.” He chucked the whole thing and went to pursue the career in stand-up comedy that had seduced him when he was younger.

“The first half of my life, I was always an inordinately lucky guy,” Hastings reflects. “After I started stand-up, it was like all my luck was gone. I had to work so hard in stand-up — I never caught a break.”

This is typical self-deprecation from Hastings, who is a regular on the nationally syndicated Bob and Tom Radio Show, has appeared on The Tonight Show (where he became one of only a handful of comedians to receive a standing ovation), and shot a handful of pilots for networks like Fox, NBC, and HBO. This fall he’s shooting an hour-long Comedy Central special that will air at year’s end.

After thirteen years in Los Angeles (“there was not two weeks that I liked it,” avows the Midwesterner), Hastings took the risk of buying the farm, so to speak, in his native Ohio.

“The idea of a farm represented permanence to me,” says Hastings, who grew up in apartment homes with his single mom.

“There was something very Americana about it.”

It’s a lovely bucolic image, though Hastings is still trying to figure out what to do with his farm now that he has it. He thought about planting, had disastrous luck hunting, and has dabbled in raising hogs and cattle. And if that sounds like the setup to a Hastings story, rest assured — it is.

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Captain Brien’s offers top stand-up comedians weekly. Check their Web site at www.captbriens.com for the schedule; in the upcoming lineup are Judy Tenuta, Aug. 24-26; Gilbert Gottfried, Jan. 15-18; and comic legend Jackie Mason, Feb. 1-9.