Comic science fiction

Comic science fiction or comedy science fiction is a subgenre of soft science fiction or science fantasy that exploits the genre's conventions for comedic effect. Comic science fiction often mocks or satirizes standard SF conventions like alien invasion of Earth, interstellar travel, or futuristic technology.

An early example 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 of trouble. Two later series cemented Kuttner's reputation 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.

Examples

Literature

• Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and related novels
• Robert Asprin's Phule series
• Fredric Brown's Martians, Go Home and other novels and short works.
• Most of Ron Goulart's work
• Rob Grant and Doug Naylor's Red Dwarf
• Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat and Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers novels
• Simon Haynes's Hal Spacejock novels
• Eric Idle's The Road to Mars
• Stanislaw Lem's novel Cyberiad and his Ijon Tichy stories.
• Paul Levinson's short story "Extra Credit"
• Much of Robert Sheckley's work
• Kurt Vonnegut's novel The Sirens of Titan, and a lot of his work
• Snoo Wilson's novel Spaceache
• The novels of Rob Grant (Colony, Incompetence and Fat).
• Rob Reid's Year Zero
• John Scalzi's Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas
• D. Harlan Wilson's novels Dr. Identity and Codename Prague
• Steven Erikson's Willful Child

Films

• Visit to a Small Planet (1960)
• The Nutty Professor (1963)
• Los astronautas (1964, Spanish)
• Il disco volante (1964, Italian)
• Barbarella (1968)
• Fancy Paradise (1968, Japanese)
• Sleeper (1973)
• Dark Star (1974)
• The Cat from Outer Space (1978)
• Slapstick of Another Kind (1982/1984)
• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
• The Ice Pirates (1984)
• Surf II (1984)
• Back to the Future trilogy (1985–1990)
• Weird Science (1985)
• Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam (1986)
• Short Circuit (1986)
• Flight of the Navigator (1986)
• The Pink Chiquitas (1987)
• Spaceballs (1987)
• *batteries not included (1987)
• Short Circuit 2 (1988)
• Mom and Dad Save the World (1992)
• Space Truckers (1996)
• Mars Attacks! (1996)
• Men in Black trilogy (1997–2012)
• Galaxy Quest (1999)
• My Favorite Martian (1999)
• The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000)
• Cybermutt (2002)
• The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)
• Good Boy! (2003)
• Mutant Swinger from Mars (2003/2009)
• Zathura (2005)
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
• Idiocracy (2006)
• Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009)
• Land of the Lost (2009)
• Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)
• Paul (2011)
• Iron Sky (2012)
• John Dies at the End (2012)
• The Watch (2012)
• Big Ass Spider! (2013)
• The World's End (2013)
• Nambiar (2013)
• Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014)
• Big Hero 6 (2014)

Video games

• Giants: Citizen Kabuto
• Ratchet & Clank series
• Space Quest series
• MDK2
• Leather Goddesses of Phobos
• EarthBound series
• Portal series
• Day of the Tentacle
• Borderlands series

Machinima

• Red vs. Blue (2003–present)

Television

See also: Science fiction sitcom

• My Favorite Martian (1963-1966)
• Quark (TV series) (1977-1978)
• "The Worm That Turned" serial series of sketches from Series 8 of The Two Ronnies (1980)
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988–1999)
• Red Dwarf (1988–1999, 2009, 2012-)
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy (2003-2008)
• Courage the Cowardly Dog (1995, 1999-2002) (also contains elements of fantasy and horror)
• 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996–2001)
• Dexter's Laboratory (1996-2003)
• Futurama (1999–2003, 2008–2013)
• Invader Zim (2001-2002, 2006)
• Time Squad (2001-2003)
• Clone High (2002-2003)
• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2002-2006)
• Hyperdrive (2006-2007)
• Phineas and Ferb (2007-2015)
• Robotomy (2010)
• Quantum Leap (1989-1993)
• Steven Universe (2013-)
• Rick and Morty (2013-)

There are also any number of animated Japanese series which use a scifi-comedy or scifi-fantasy-comedy setting. Urusei Yatsura, Dr. Slump, FLCL and Tenchi Muyo! are examples.

Web television

• The Crew (webseries) (2008–present)
• Voyage Trekkers (2011–present)
• Other Space (2015–present)

Web comics

• Starslip Crisis (2005–present)
• Schlock Mercenary (2000–present)

Radio

• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series) (1978-2005)
• Canadia: 2056 (2007–present)
• Nebulous (2005-2008)
• Space Hacks (2007-2008)
• The Spaceship (2005-2008)
• Undone (2006-2010)

Audio

• Ruby the Galactic Gumshoe (1982–present)

Theatre

• Steve Jordan's play 'Dead Static' and its sequel 'Pilgrim Shadow'.

Multiple media

• Back to the Future series by Robert Zemeckis (feature films, novelizations, animated TV series and video games)
• Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series (radio, printed novels, TV series, feature film, etc.)
• Hyper Police series by Minoru Tachikawa (manga and anime).
• Gin Tama series by Hideaki Sorachi (manga and anime).

See also

• Comic fantasy