Comic science fiction
Comic science fiction is a sub-
genre of
science fiction that exploits the genre's conventions for
comic effect. Early pulp science fiction contained few comic stories. A notable exception was the
Pete Manx series by
Henry Kuttner and Arthur K. Barnes (sometimes writing together and sometimes separately, under the house pen-name of Kelvin Kent). Published in
Thrilling Wonder Stories in the late
1930s and early
1940s, the series featured a
time-traveling carnival barker who uses his con-man abilities to get out trouble. Two later series cemented Kuttner's ruputation as one of the most popular, early writers of comic science fiction: the
Gallegher series (about a drunken inventor and his narcissistic
robot) and the
Hogben series (about a family of mutant hillbillies). The former appeared in
Astounding Science Fiction in 1943 and 1948 and was collected in hardcover as
Robots Have No Tails (Gnome, 1952), and the latter appeared in
Thrilling Wonder Stories in the late 1940s.
Additional examples:
Compare with: comic fantasy and science fiction comic