COMIC CHARACTER TRAITS
1. Self-ignorance: the character is comic in direct proportion to his ignorance to himself. Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a great example.
2. Funny faces: A comic face is rigid, a set expression, and acts as a mask “encrusting” the living. The “straight face” or “deadpan” is rigid as well.
3. Social ineptitude: Someone callous to social life, or unaware of the social world, will appear comic.
4. Physical gestures: If the person focuses on a physical gesture rather than on an objective, or the gesture is not intentional but rather unaware, comedy results. Dr. Evil in Austin Powers
5. Automatism: Things done automatically without self-awareness become comic
6. Vice: Vice can be comic when it is developed completely as if it is a character itself, and it becomes the puppeteer pulling the strings of the character. The classic vice: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.
7. Innocence: A classic comic character trait, innocence or naiveté allows the character to get involved into all kinds of trouble. Think Borat or The Pink Panther
8. Obsession: The greater distance between the depth of a character’s obsession and the shallowness of its object, the funnier.
9. Vanity: By definition-excessive pride in one’s appearance or accomplishments-vanity invites ridicule.
10. Professional solemnity: Over-seriousness is a form of rigidity of the emotions.
11. Absentmindedness: Being absentminded is a sign of a fossilized intellect.