A Zippy on speech balloons (a.k.a. speech bubbles, word balloons, etc.):
Where does the “almost 300 years” come from? Here’s the relevant part of the fascinating Wikipedia entry:
In Western graphic art, labels that reveal what a pictured figure is saying have appeared since at least the 13th century. Word balloons began appearing in 18th century printed broadsides and political cartoons from the American Revolution often used them.
Unfortunately, the link to “The Evolution of the Speech Balloon” that the article gives (and that you can find many places on the web) doesn’t work.
Some sample balloons:
From top to bottom: an ordinary speech balloon, a thought balloon, a scream balloon.
December 30, 2010 at 8:59 am |
“Evolution of Speechballoons” is available via the Wayback Machine at http://web.archive.org/web/20070513035710/http://bugpowder.com/andy/e.speechballoons.evolution.html.
December 30, 2010 at 2:49 pm |
Wow. A wonderful collection of images over many centuries.
January 1, 2011 at 6:21 am |
Paul Frank on ADS-L:
January 1, 2011 at 6:32 am |
And Arne Adolfsen on Facebook, with another precursor:
June 3, 2012 at 5:57 am |
[…] on the left, a thought balloon on the right. These two, and a scream balloon, are illustrated here, along with a link to a great “Evolution of Speechballoons” site, where it’s […]
November 7, 2012 at 6:43 am |
[…] cartoon balloon (also known as a bubble) with text in it represents thought rather than speech (see here). So: under water in a cartoon, everything looks like […]
October 8, 2013 at 4:43 am |
[…] An earlier Zippy on speech balloons is here. […]