Comic Fantasy
Comic fantasy plays the genre for laughs. It sends up heroes, wizards and prophecies, and often says something sharp about our own world while it does.
Where comic fantasy came from
Fantasy and comedy have long overlapped. L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's Harold Shea stories, beginning in 1940, sent a modern psychologist into mythic worlds where nothing went to plan. William Goldman's The Princess Bride (1973) framed a swashbuckling romance as an abridgement of a book that never existed, and became a classic.
The fantasy boom of the 1970s gave comedy plenty to parody. Piers Anthony's Xanth books, starting with A Spell for Chameleon (1977), were built on puns, and Robert Asprin's Another Fine Myth (1978) began a long, light series of the same kind. Then Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic (1983) introduced the Discworld, and comic fantasy found its best-known voice.
Pratchett wrote 41 Discworld novels, moving from parody into satire of police, banking, newspapers, religion and war. Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle (1986), Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds (1984) and Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair (2001) each found different kinds of joke, and Nicholas Eames' Kings of the Wyld (2017) imagined adventuring parties as aging rock bands.
What separates it from neighbouring subgenres
Comic fantasy is defined by intent: it wants you to laugh. It can still be moving or sharp, but the comedy is the point, not a relief from it.
Fractured fairy tales are one branch of comic fantasy. Most retellings, though, take their source seriously, and darkness rather than comedy is their usual twist.
Cozy fantasy is warm and low-stakes, and often gently funny. Comic fantasy can be sharp, satirical and even dark; the stakes can be high, as long as the treatment is funny.
Many early comic fantasies, like the Harold Shea stories, sent a modern character into a fantasy world to be baffled. The outsider's view is a natural engine for comedy.
Sword and sorcery's muscular heroes and decadent sorcerers are favourite targets for parody. Kings of the Wyld and Discworld's Cohen the Barbarian both mock and love the form.
Comic fantasy takes the genre's furniture seriously enough to trip over it.
How it reads
Expect wordplay, footnotes, running jokes and genre clichés turned inside out: prophecies that fail, chosen ones who don't want the job, dark lords with paperwork. The best comic fantasy also builds a world worth caring about, so the jokes land harder.
Many series can be read in almost any order, Discworld especially, which makes them easy to sample. The tone ranges from silly to quietly profound, and readers often find that the funniest books are also the ones that say the most.
Reader favorites
Popular in Comic right now
01
The Colour of Magic
Terry Pratchett
Discworld #1
02
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Good Omens
03
The Princess Bride
William Goldman
04
Guards! Guards!
Terry Pratchett
Discworld #8
05
The Eyre Affair
Jasper Fforde
Thursday Next #1
06
Howl's Moving Castle
Diana Wynne Jones
Howl's Castle #1
07
A Spell for Chameleon
Piers Anthony
Xanth #1
08
Bridge of Birds: A Novel of an Ancient China That Never Was
Barry Hughart
Master Li #1
09
Another Fine Myth
Robert Asprin
Myth Adventures #1
10
Kings of the Wyld
Nicholas Eames
The Band #1
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Frequently asked
Where should a new reader start with Discworld?+–
Not necessarily at the beginning. Guards! Guards! and Mort are common starting points, since the first two books are rougher parody. Discworld is built from several sub-series that can each be read on their own.
Is comic fantasy just parody?+–
Parody is part of it, but the best of it is satire, using a fantasy world to say something about our own. Pratchett's later Discworld novels are about justice, faith, money and prejudice.
What's the difference between comic fantasy and cozy fantasy?+–
Cozy fantasy is about comfort and low stakes. Comic fantasy is about laughter, and its stakes can be as high as any epic's.
Where should a new reader start outside Discworld?+–
The Princess Bride is short and endlessly quotable. For something modern, Kings of the Wyld is an action comedy with real heart.
Is The Princess Bride a fantasy novel?+–
Yes. It's a fairy-tale adventure with giants, swordfights and miracles, wrapped in a comic frame about an abridged book. It's one of the best-known comic fantasies.
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