Speech balloons

*postings on speech/word balloons/bubbles in cartoons

☛ 12/30/10 Speech balloons:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2010/12/30/speech-balloons/]
ZippySpeechBalloons.gif
capsule history of speech balloons in cartoons

☛ 6/3/12 Balloons:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/06/03/balloons/]
BizarroBalloons.gif
smoke signals as analogies of speech balloons

☛ 1/11/13 Realism plus:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2013/01/11/realism-plus/]
ZippyArt.jpg
where are the speech balloons in fine art?

☛ 10/8/13 Speech balloons in Dingburg:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2013/10/08/speech-balloons-in-dingburg/]
ZippyBalloons.jpg

The strip treats word balloons as physical objects, revealing the thoughts of whoever holds it.

☛ 9/17/14 Smoke signals:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2014/09/17/smoke-signals/]
BizarroSmoke.jpg
smoke signals as analogues of speech balloons

☛ 12/23/14 Metatext in the comics:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2014/12/23/metatext-in-the-comics-2/]

Single-panel cartoons often have captions, inside quotation marks, instead of speech balloons, showing what a character is saying. In particular, this is New Yorker style. Not really metatext, but a piece of text that happens to be located outside the main image.

☛ 2/13/16: Word play for the weekend:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2016/02/13/word-play-for-the-weekend/]
MGGBalloons.jpg
#2: MGG with a play on balloons and speech balloons in the comics

☛ 3/12/16 Mayan comics and alliterative music:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2016/03/12/mayan-comics-and-alliterative-music/]

a 2/16/16 BBC story by David Robson, “Did the Maya create the first ‘comics’?: Long before Bugs Bunny came along, a cheeky rabbit terrorised Mayan gods. With speech bubbles, stink lines and naughty jokes, they are uncannily similar to today’s graphic novels”

☛ 1/21/17: Word balloons:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2017/01/21/word-balloons/]
ZippySpeechBalloons.jpg
word/speech balloons/bubbles and their history

☛ 6/20/17: The terrible truth about bubble wrap:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2017/06/20/the-terrible-truth-about-bubble-wrap/]
MGGMakeYouTalk.jpg
#2 MGG on speech bubbles; connected to #1 DatorBubbleWrap.jpg, Joe Dator New Yorker cartoon on bubble wrap

☛ 7/4/17: Vlad the Employer:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2017/07/14/vlad-the-employer/]
ChatfieldSpeechBubble.jpg
#4 Ginger Meggs cartoon in which speech bubble covers up objects in the depicted world

☛ 8/25/17: Speaking, writing, bubbles:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2017/08/25/speaking-writing-bubbles/]
MGGSpellingBubble.jpg

When Grimm speaks in a cartoon bubble, what he says appears in printed English — because, after all, a cartoon bubble (aka speech bubble) is piece of visual representation. Consequently, his speech is spelled, and is therefore subject to misspelling.

☛ 1/28/18: Four more recent cartoons:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2018/01/28/four-more-recent-cartoons/]
ZitsSpeechBubble.jpg
speech bubbles/balloons in #2

☛ 5/14/18: Air spelling:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2018/05/14/air-spelling/]
DoonesburyAirSpelling.jpg
meta: characters’ awareness of the text in speech balloons

☛ 3/30/19: How to use your balloons:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2019/03/30/how-to-use-your-balloons/]
BizarroSpeechBalloon.jpg
speech/word balloons, meta cartoons, self-reference

☛ 8/2/19: Never go out without a speech balloon:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2019/08/02/never-go-out-without-a-speech-balloon/]
ZippySpeechBalloons2.jpg
#1

☛ 4/22/21: Baxter on language:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2021/04/22/118694/]
#4 Glen Baxter cartoon with empty speech balloon

☛ 5/22/21: Up, up and away:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2021/05/22/up-up-and-away/
Pearls Before Swine strip:

The … cartoon is one of a species in which speech balloons are treated as physical objects in the characters’ context, objects that contain the words the characters say, words that the characters can see and read … — and simultaneously are treated as lighter-than-air flotation devices that will rise in the air and carry objects with them.

☛ 11/12/22: Hold on to the bubble …:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2022/11/12/hold-on-to-the-bubble/]
MGG strip with speech and thought bubbloons as physical objects, with words in them

☛ 11/14/22:Editing bubbloons in Zits:
[https://arnoldzwicky.org/2022/11/14/editing-bubbloons-in-zits/]
two Zits strips in which Jeremy and his mother edit material in each other’s bubbloons