It was in the comic mode, though, that Hagler was most disarming.

But the worldview is conventional - and the comic mode isn't punk in spirit; it's easy listening.

But he has written in a wide variety of comic modes, from traditional farces to comedies of manners to ruminative character studies.

Having dealt with executions and labor camp in a comic mode, he's not about to shed tears over the hardships of exile.

One appreciates that he appreciates the corny-classic comic mode in which he's working.

He said, "The film had to be written in a comic mode, because otherwise it's too painful to deal with".

But there is never much question that the more benign comic mode of the play will ultimately reassert itself.

Just as your detective, however comic, needs a basis of solid fact, so does a story set in the comic mode.

And that mingling celebrated in marriage marks the comic mode and the highlight of the style of youth.

No one, he says, returning to his comic mode, blames black people for the fact that there's never been a Chinese tap dancer.