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:

• Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat novels
• Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
• Science fiction sitcoms

Compare with: comic fantasy