Humour in comics

In all forms of media humour plays an important role, for the ability to laugh is a universal thing in all walks of life and deep down I think all humans want to be entertained and smile. This is why humour is implemented into many things, it can make many subjects more relatable and enjoyable once you are able to connect with it. Here are some examples of how different things handle humour differently.

Action/Drama
Many people have heard of the term 'comic relief' while a lot of the times it's used poorly, with characters existing to be purely nothing BUT comic relief. When done right it can add a third dimension to your story and make it more enjoyable. But what is comic relief and how does it apply to the action and drama scene?

As the name suggests, comic 'relief' is made to lower the stress levels of a scene, to ease tension. Disney is the most common offender when using 'comic relief'. A good example of this is the Lion King, where after Simba's father dies and he is chased from the pride lands, Simba is immediately met by Timon and Pumbaa, who are bright in colour and even have a nice 'don't worry' song.
This means that the audience has something to ease off the stress from the last scene, which is needed so that the film can build tension again when the climax starts up. Otherwise, if they kept going with the tension, after a while no one would care, their expectations of the scene would drop as they can't climb forever.

Pure comedies
Some things exist to do nothing but shell out laugh after laugh, with silly hijinks and ridiculous leaps of logic, sort of like a Jim Carrey film. But in his films, there is usually some form of drama meant to keep audience seated and not kill them from a busted lung.

One example of this is a comic called One Punch Man, where the entire premise is about a guy who wanted to be a superhero ever since he was a kid. After defeating a man who became a crab monster (after a life time of eating nothing but crabs) he set out to become the greatest superhero. He now has the ability to defeat any opponent with simply one punch, but therein also lies the problem for him. He's bored, he fears nothing, get's excited by nothing and does not enjoy being a superhero at all.

To make life harder for him, a cyborg by the name of Geno wants to be his pupil and he's not even a official superhero yet.

The entire premise of this comic is silly, it's like a child wrote a comic and then a pro artist drew it.

(( Which is already a thing, it's called Axe-cop ))

Because of this, you have to realise that the humour in this particular comic does not come from the whole 'he beats people in one punch', but how the world reacts to him in doing so and his own apathy towards being a superhero who is so powerful. The bit that 'stops the humour' in this comic is not the tension, for there is never ANY tension in this comic, it's when people are talking, or as the comic likes to point out, 'the boring parts'.

Slice of life comedy (and my comic)
The comedy in these comics generally comes from the everyday life actions of the characters and how the others react to these. The best example of this I can think of for a universal understanding is the sitcom by the name of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. In Friends all the issues, problems, screw ups and everything are nothing extreme, they are everyone's everyday life problems, only made bigger by the characters, because to an average, everyday person, the smallest problem is a major problem as it's 'their' problem.