It was another great year at Life the Universe and Everything. These are the notes I took from the panel on dark humor.

– Dark humor can help a reader lighten their own tension in a story.
– Tragic city is in close up while comedy is a distant view.
– Dark humor touches upon sensitive and difficult topics. Some examples are modest proposal by Jonathan Smith, catch 22, Nick Haley, Chuck Punnock’s fight club, grim dark, and Trainspotting. Dark humor is important for the subject matter is so hard that the only way to combat against the extreme of it is to humor. It can address and bring to light social issues. One example is the herald and mod move. Another move is Heathers.
– It’s important to remember that you cannot be funny to everybody. Ever since 9/11, no movie studio is willing to depict a movie with a plane crash in it, even if it’s in another country.
– Jim butchers Harry Dresden books are good example of humor, that is more in the presentation of the story rather than a punchline.
– Dark humor can also be provided by the antics of the sidekick. A character can see and say things as they are. Readers can become interested in characters because of how they combat the challenges they face.
– When doing dark humor, you need to know what is a sensitive subject to you as an author. For one panelist, it was no jokes of the military. For him, that was to blue as a topic fiction should challenge us. Comedy is always character driven. Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett are two authors that do well on dark humor.
– Dark humor can relieve the tension of an intense scene.

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