Cosmic Comic Story
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We have clearly reached the point where only rampant and unchecked stabbing can save us. And my first act as self-appointed stabmaster is to slay my comrades.
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So a great deal is on the line. Perhaps an evil organization is afoot, the villain is plotting his evil doomsday device, the princess must be saved, or someone just wants to damn well make it in time for dinner. Perhaps the stakes are greater than one could ever imagine. With things getting this out of hand, surely you would need the most professional heroism imaginable. And you'd expect to see proper hero etiquette, repectable allies and foes developed, straight-forward plots, as we learned about trials, overcoming the impossible, and ultimate triumph.
Not so with this genre.
In a Cosmic Comic Story, the matters are supposedly as high as one would expect from an action or drama filled narrative. Only the tropes are barely ever played straight, the genre awareness is through the roof, and characters are always asinine in different ways. And all for laughs.
Some defining traits of a Cosmic Comic:
- A premise for adventure, high stakes and pandemonium as an actual plot as opposed to mere hijinks or non sequiturs. Or at least, the emphasis builds up to appear as such. Even if the story's only plot is based around cooking a muffin or saving a puppy, it has to be treated with such over-the-top prominence that one gets an idea of how far the story goes. Cosmic might describe the very high end of such a tale.
- A continual playing with and/or referencing to the tropes and type of story. The genre is taken from something you'd expect but twisted and distorted into it's own thing. This is generally quite prevalent.
- And of course the characters, which tend to follow distinct patterns of hilarity. They may often be parodies of existing characters, a new spin on an existing archetype, stereotypes of that genre taken to the extreme, or just outrageous characters in their own right.
The pantheon of common character types include:
The Hero: Is always the optimistic, bright character the adventure centers around. While he/she may be eccentric, they usually have the LEAST amount of strange quirks. (Compared to the rest of the cast) It'll usually be based on how overly-observational and genre savvy they are, and how their perspective and reactions to things lights up the rest of the story. The most sensible and down-to-earth character.
The Incompetent:: The idealistic dumb character who, even in a genre of inept characters, takes the cake for not having any common sense at all. They may quite often however be the hardest to try at things, putting their effort and idealism over all else. Much humor comes out of their general misunderstanding of things and interactions with others. They'll always (or at least try) be on good terms with the hero, and will often find themselves the victims of the amoral's ploys. These characters are almost always the ones to come out on top though, regardless of their lack of wit.
The Snark: This character will take the role of the reluctant side-character in the story. They will rarely be in it by choice, or if so always in it for something less than the main goal. When the Hero makes observations, they will be the first to sarcastically mock it. May or may nor overlap with the Amoral.
The Amoral: This character will be the one to take advantage of the situation, whether for the crew's goals or their own. Tend to be self-centered and sadistic but still caring enough to hang around the rest of the cast, as they'll never be reprimanded by the cast, and if they are it'll never stick. They get free passes from this simply for being awesome. Like the Hero they'll be very genre savvy, but will be more inclined to take full benefit of the situation. Morality is not their strong suit. May or may nor overlap with the Snarker.
The Token: A character that is a stereotype or representation of something commonly found in the existing genre, but written off as something else completely which adds humor and flavor to the story. They may overstate their ideals or exaggerate traits common for their character type, or be used as a vehicle for jokes about such.
The Chick:: Female characters in this genre will always be narratively forced to have two options: To not be a respectable character, or never get any in-story respect. They'll always play the female vying for respect from their colleagues, or one exaggeratedly eccentric and only useful in awkward scenerios where the plot demands it. Both sub-types are likely to face sexual harassment from the Amoral and criticism from the Snark.
The Flamboyant Villain: The bad guys of this genre hardly seem like a threat outside of the context of the genre they're in. They'll often be talkative, have poor or absurd motives, and have oddities that make you question how they can be taken seriously. They'll often be genre blind, and when flaws are pointed out in their plan (are acted)on, this villain will be completely mystified on how their plan could have failed. Or still know the type of situation but avoid it out of a sense of obligation, and still fail.
Absurd Others: The side characters, be they minor heroes, commanders, friends or minions, are often off-the-charts awkward. They will have strange personalities you wouldn't expect or be species, genders,and archetypes that seem completely out of place. (Ex, a space-mook that dreams of Lolita-fashion, or a talking fish that guides the heroes to the fountain of rainbow tears, the innkeeper who collects the characters toenails as payment, etc.)
The heroes will often survive their perils despite their own stupidity and the odds against them, and usually win out of sheer incidence. A very high over-dosing of this trope without regard to keeping any tropes/genre straight leads to mashing the entire thing into a smorgasbord of humor, where the entire thing is a work in itself.
For example, the villain might be a completely serious, genuine threat, but the characters might follow the examples listed here and completely come out on top. It's because the villain is actually wrong in that he/she's only correctly aware of the genre the series is mocking. But by doing the 'right thing' in that predictable scenerio, they don't realize in the current story they're going to lose for obvious reasons.
Or the heroes may be more realistically defined but find all their problems and situations completely illogical. They may try to play to the genre's tropes, only for it all to backfire, and be subverted while a character is pointing out how stupid that was. Comedy often arises from the cast trying to become more genre savvy trying to find out which aspects of their adventures can be handled realistically, which like the story they've been in, and which ones they have to rediscover completely. Every character assumes these values differently. A chick or snarker may possibly address the situation as realistically as possible, while the incompetent might treat it idealistically as whatever genre he/she believes they are in. The 'Amoral' may not care and assume whatever is in their best interest.
Tends to quite often break the 4th wall. Defining the characters well and the sort of genre it's parodying is highly important for establishing the humor for the audience, as well as establishing the importance and absurdness of the plot.
Compare with Character-Magnetic Team, Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, and Hitchhiker Heroes.
Film
- The entire movie Spaceballs is a humorous take on the Starwars franchise, playing with the original plot and characters in a funny way that you wouldn't believe you were seeing the same type of movie as the original.
Web Comics
- The webcomic 8-Bit Theater. It ruthlessly parodies the game which it's based on (loosely Final Fantasy) and the character dysfunction makes it a wonder that they were able to get through the comic at all. And the characters are pretty keen on the elements of their world, to the point where one of them can disable himself by forgetting to update his stat sheet.
- Said character exists in an RPG Mechanics Verse. The problem is that no one else does.
- MS Paint Adventures' comics Problem Sleuth and Homestuck lean on this genre quite a bit. They play with the tics of gaming, and have intricate epic plots that reach literary levels of complexity, although the comedic PS is more humor and gaming based. They tend to break their verses' mechanics quite a lot, such as destroying healthbars or shattering name-windows.
- An in-universe subversion exists, with the gaming of Sgrub. The trolls all have violent, dysfunctional, conflicting personalities and should never have been able to complete their session except through plot. (Although one of the characters disagrees with this.) But through the forceful insistence of Karkat Vantas, they manage to come together and beat the game. Almost.
- Darths and Droids is a partial example. Like the Spaceballs example above, it reimagines the Star Wars movies, but as though their respective plots were made up on the spot in a role-playing game (though some of the stories are completely different). Consequently, there's a TON of lampshading, shout-outs, and generally commenting how certain events make absolutely no sense.
Web Original
- Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series can be considered this. It heavily parodies both the original Yugioh premise (The fate of the world depending on a childrens' card game),and internet culture. And eventually even parodying itself and the abridged genre (which it created) as it became aware of it's own conventions. (Overused catch phrases, dependence on internet Memes.)
- The legend of Bob Mcmuffin is a rather silly tale of a group of adventures from diffent time periods who all team up to defeat the evil super-villain, Mr. Roboto. It gets pretty crazy.
Western Animation
- The show Futurama shows a completely varied and interactive cast, and plays up on many sci-fi tropes that would make the show taken seriously. For example, one of the main characters scoffs at the idea of having giant bird-men hatch or exist, but keeps an entire closet full of doomsday devices and other gadgets.
Real Life
- A rather interesting meta example might be the community of 4chan and all they've accomplished. The board is full of trolls, vigilantes, and all sorts of divided, diverse people. Despite this, when they work together (or at least find common ground), they can accomplish quite a lot. This includes but isn't limited to, fighting Scientology, combating censorship, making political statements, starting up unexpected fandoms, and bringing down their fury on anyone who opposes them. Not to mention they are a major source of memes and humor, as well as unbelievable controversy.
- Part of the humor comes in them putting out their own egocentric image, having people believe that image, and then acting according to people's perceptions of them, therefore creating a sort of fictional anonymous internet persona they can adore to. And then scrutinizing and exploiting that persona for their own amusement.