Obscenicons began as a device in the comics, and cartoons return to them again and again in an assortment of meta-referential ways, using them not merely for ostentatious concealment of taboo vocabulary, but also in play about them. Two recent examples, from Zits and Bizarro:
Jeremy’s cursing is conveyed by some standard obscenicons, plus an assortment of dire symbols, thus harking back to the early days of obscenicons in the comics, before they became largely conventionalized.
(Note the use of adult here, as in adult movies and adult book store.)
Then we have the conceit that the whole spoken taboo word is represented by a sequence of obscenicons (@*%&!), but can be broken down into its separate glyphs, just as, say, SHIT represents a spoken word and also a sequence of letters.
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