What is 'Comedy'?

Is that which is "comic" of lesser value, less a means of seeking truths, and less "serious"? Consider popular and "high" culture, and how it is s rarity that awards or lasting critical praise is accorded to comedy - why should this be, and is it necessarily correct, or even healthy? Do we learn more and achieve more through being "serious"? Is there actually more "art" to the tragic or dramatic - or do we miss the power and often greater subtleties wrought in comic work because we're focussed on the surface? Not all laughs are easy. As Edmund Keane reportedly observed on his death-bed, "Dying is easy - comedy is hard."