The bishop's mandate - to underreact to whatever his young emissary is to encounter - sets up an essentially comic scenario.

During Amin's time in power, popular media outside of Uganda often portrayed him as an essentially comic and eccentric figure.

This essentially comic detachment served him well in his verse, somewhat less so here.

She understood an essentially comic medium in which a simple pause can convey desperate loneliness.

To be often wrong, but never disheartened; gamely acknowledging one's mistakes, and soldiering on - this is an essentially comic situation.

And Ms. Jones burdens an essentially comic play with a thudding tragic center.

Oh, I think a novel, however sad it is, is essentially comic.

The other Bip sketches were essentially comic.

Apparently lacking faith in the essentially comic nature of life, Allen has nonetheless done his most valuable work in comedy.

Mr. Almodóvar acknowledges misfortune - and takes it seriously - from a perspective that is essentially comic.