Black comedy

Black comedy, also known as black humor, is a subgenre of comedy and satire where topics and events normally treated seriously – death, mass murder, sickness, madness, terror, drug abuse, rape, etc. – are treated in a humorous or satirical manner. Synonyms created to avoid possible racial overtones include dark comedy/humor, morbid comedy/humor and off-color humor (see also color metaphors for race.) A scene in Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot demonstrates black comedy well: a man takes off his belt to hang himself, and his trousers fall down.

Literature

• As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
• Candide by Voltaire
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. However, this may be a case of unintentional humor, as Heller reported in a Playboy interview in June 1975 of not being aware the novel was funny when he wrote it. http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/kerkhoff/ContempDrama/Wasserstein.htm
• Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk
• Jennifer Government by Max Barry
• The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
• National Lampoon, especially the work of Michael O'Donoghue, Doug Kenney, and Ed Bluestone.
• Oil of Dog by Ambrose Bierce
• One of the Guys by Robert Clark Young
• A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, a series of children's books about three orphans who go through many tragic and unfortunate experiences.
• Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, an anti-war sci-fi novel loosely based on Vonnegut's experiences as a German POW.
• any of the six wartime aviation novels by Derek Robinson: Goshawk Squadron, Piece of Cake, War Story, A Good Clean Fight, Hornet's Sting, and Damned Good Show