💜 Huge thanks to Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou for providing his lettering wisdom for this video! Check out his channel: ruclips.net/user/StripPanelNaked 💜 Also thanks to Lady Emily for voicing all the quotes in the video: ruclips.net/user/LadyEmilyPresents
HOPE I GET PINNED for pointing out that the Manga Tomo-chan is a Girl is using Panels and Speech-Bubbles and Writing-Tricks to astonishing, miraculous Effects, as explained in the video '9 Ways Tomo-Chan uses Panels well'.
The best thought balloons were Silver Age Superman explaining to the audience that he was doing something completely bonkers. "I'll use my SUPER-VENTRILOQUISM to make it APPEAR as if YOU, the AUDIENCE can HEAR MY THOUGHTS!"
@@ProjektTaku Savage Dragon creator had cool deconstruction/parody character of Superman with premise that was basically : not-Superman was first ever superhero, so when other superheroes started to appear and had cooler superpowers than his "jump high, punch hard and be invincible" he would kill them and steal their powers, that's how he "learned" to fly and heat vision, x-ray, etc. I may typed something wrong, but I am definitely right about premise. But also historically/canonically Superman always had power extension/upgrade since his creators, because already by his creators he had his for example hearing upgraded from normal hearing when he had to hang behind window to hear shit (also it's why Clark Kent works as reporter, because OG Superman couldn't just hear crime around his city let alone whole world like in more modern interpretations) to legit superhearing when he could hear stuff that were behind many walls and galsses and doors. Also Superman is perhaps only Superhero that was substantially retconed by creators as well, when they added Kents to his origin in Superman #1 (originally he grew in orphanage)
@@FirstnameLastname-my7bz wow, not-superman sounds really cool. I like to think superman's powers just grew as he learned more about himself and his limits, since he does train.
Now I'm having the idea for a sort of immortal knight character, whose thoughts are conveyed in stylized ribbons that billow and fold around them, and hang off them loosely. Like there's a panel looking down from the top of the building, and their feet step in and are wrapped in their thought ribbons. Or they've shouldered their huge broadsword, and the ribbon is coiled around the blade. Occasionally the ribbons act as the borders of panels. And there might be a dramatic moment where they're swing their sword at someone, with the ribbon following the arc of the blade, conveying their thought of "Die, Thing of Evil! Return to the Pit!". It would be a lot harder to implement because it's not a balloon or caption box hanging in space. It would be integrated into the art itself, and require a lot of careful planning with the letterer to make it work. But I think it would be cool as heck.
I always thought it was "Speech Ballon" and "Thought Bubble" respectively based on the '"tail" of each. The "Balloon" having a full and connected neck/tail, and The "Bubble" having smaller bubbles that sort of percolate up to the main bubble.
Another problem with narration boxes: they can be confused with narration text boxes. If you have an unseen narrator (assumed to be the writer) who might have a bit of personality (Stan Lee being a major one), then when you see a text box saying "What's this?", you might be confused as to whether it's the narrator or the character. Sure, different colors and the like, but a thought bubble (I prefer "bubble" over "balloon") makes it clear it's the character, and the narrator can continue to be personality driven and quirky in the text boxes, without confusion in the slightest.
Related: I remember that when I was reading the current Batgirls comic, which has its own snarky narrator. But for the longest time I assumed it was Steph cause it sounded most like her and I was so used to narration boxes that I assume the narrator is a characters thoughts.
Yeah I feel that's more a case of badly executed rather than problem with the tool. As you say there are ways to avoid such an issue. This toe feels like if I was looking at a panel where two characters have there heads close to each other and it's unclear who's head the thought bubble Is coming from and calling it a problem of thought bubbles
This and several other reasons might be why the narrator voice has dissapeared. A narrator with a strong personality will pull you right out of the story and make your remember that you are just reading a story. This is why youtubers who narrate using an idiosyncratic speech pattern (the snarky or ironic voice for instance) draw too much attention to themselves when the attention should be on the informative content.
I’m surprised we didn’t get some examples of non-standard thought bubbles. Like Impulse’s picture thought bubbles, which made it seem less like thinking in words and more like something running through Bart’s rampant imagination. Or even the thought bubbles in Bendis’s Mighty Avengers, which always seemed like spur-of-the-moment thoughts and even sometimes purposely contradicted what the character was actually saying.
Jimmy Palmiotti & Amanda Conner also used stylized thought balloons during their runs on Harley Quinn (usually constructed out of diamond shapes to match her motif) and Starfire (who occasionally did picture bubbles like Impulse).
Plus, there have been other ways to represent telepathy like in Morrison's JLA where the telepathic bubble was a lumpy, wavy version of a speech callout.
Apologies for the couple of random music volume spikes. Not sure what happened there, but I'll watch out for those in the future. There are captions in case you can't hear what I'm saying.
In European comics, which is mostly humour and adventure stories rather than super heroes, the thought balloon is still going strong. The narration boxes are still dedicated to the all-knowing narrator. So whenever I pick up American super hero comics after I've been away from them for awhile, I need to remind myself that all the boxes aren't pure narration, but a character's thoughts. I think just using the character narrations the same way but in cloud shapes instead of boxes would make it more clear and wouldn't crave the death of the classic narration also.
so much this, european comics have squares for the all knowing narrator, thought bubbles for thoughts and speech ballons for spoken words, and honestly i like them this way. This combined way is simple yet effective and very clear for the reader!
My personal, earliest awareness of this is the Punisher’s “War Journal” monologue which did feel unique and weird mixed in with regular speech and thought bubbles. But it’s interesting that “bubbles” and “balloons” are seen as too silly for the medium. They just refer to how it looks, not the content of the thoughts. It’s one thing for the Punisher to be so self-serious, but as a general practice it feels like too much grimdark and insecure. Like, calm down - no one is going to disparage your literature because you dot your i with a heart.
I'm pretty new to comics but I LOVE details like this that get overlooked so much when they really are so crucial. As a newer reader I notice a lot just how little details like these can make a difference in whether or not I can even easily read or follow along without difficulty.
In my own comic I use thought balloons together with caption boxes and for a very specific reason-they serve two different purposes-the self-aware character vs the unselfconscious character. I use word balloons to depict internal reactions the character does not have control over whereas caption boxes are the character remembering the situation after the fact. This sets up a dynamic for me where the character is a somewhat unreliable narrator and I can show that. The caption box may say a situation occurred one way while the panel (depicting the immediate moment) shows something else and the thought balloon can relate the same piece of information but unfiltered by memory or the desire to cultivate one’s appearance. For instance, the caption box may say: “I didn’t like his tone and I told him so” while the thought balloon will say, “I really don’t like this guy’s tone”. It becomes clear the character _wanted_ to tell the guy off but didn’t actually. The panel now indicates to the reader that this character tells white lies about events and are insecure enough to retell a story differently to make themselves look better. This is the root of a lot of jokes. Now, I don’t exactly stick to the classic thought balloon. Mine are kind of wobbly rectangles of focused lines (more like Manga) so I’m clearly not entirely comfortable with campy traditional balloons, but I still find them very necessary to the storytelling.
I always loved Bart Allen's imagery-based thought bubbles! It fits perfectly for comics and I really wish more series/characters used them in a similar fashion.
The great thing about those is that they seemed less like your typical inner monolgue and more like something quickly going through Bart’s imagination.
All the reference books I've read and the pros I've talked to call them all "balloons." Never heard anyone in the business use the word "bubbles" for anything.
So there's a point in gweenpoole strikes back issue 4 where she's talking to the reader through Morse code and it's like this yellow box was a little arrow coming from it pointing to the origin of the Morse code and underneath it is her pink caption boxes (which represent her thoughts in this comic) which spell it out what she is saying, which seems like a lot of space being taken up for her to just do this one gag it only lasts for like 3 panels, but it's very interesting
But Gwen poole knows she's in a co,ic and that we are able to see her thoughts in the frist places like hyper aware and yet she chooses to uses mores coad Wich leads to her getting caught so what is even going on?😵💫
Hassan's comment about the pacing of manga being much faster than western comics actually made a lot of sense to me as a dyslexic reader! It's very easy for my eyes and attention to "slide" across a page too quickly to absorb western books and sometimes comic books, but the speed fits EXACTLY with manga. Thanks for helping me figure out why that works!
I felt this, even as a non-dyslexic reader. The speed of manga is one of the main draws - and one of the reasons I tend to prefer manga to anime, where the pacing is "one major story unit per episode," no matter what happens in that story unit.
Yeah, this derives from Osamu Tezuka's cinematic techniques that are really the foundation of all modern manga. Following his emergence there was a great deal of thought about this kind of thing and different methods used to achieve it among the generation that was negotiating the forms of manga and gekiga. but, yeah, manga flows
@@stephenbradford8524 depends also on whether you're watching an old or new anime series, the latter in most cases used to get started a couple or so years after the manga it's based on starts and then release episodes weekly from there alongside the manga that also pubblishes chapters weekly, issue is that one chapter alone doesn't fill the 20 minute runtime of anime episodes without some serious stretching, an episode usually encompasses 3 manga chapters, which obviously means that they must they'll eventually run out of material to adapt if they don't slow down, which means slowing the pacing down and adding filler content not present in the source material is a necessity, anime today work with a more lenient seasonal release, where they'll start relatively soon after a manga series starts just like the old days, but make new seasons of 20 od so chunks of episodes every couple or so years, which makes filler basically obsolete, they still do some, but not to the degree where entire story arcs are made up because the manga is being published at a much faster pace with monthly and especially weekly chapter releases so unless a bunch of hiatuses slowing down work happen, the anime stuff are golden. There's also series that aren't based on spurce material which obviously have better pacing, especially the older stuff since they're in full control of where the story goes, but they're absolutely not as common as manga adaptations in the industry are.
I miss thought balloons. They where always interesting to read, even if they where just exposition machines sometimes. But, I’m more sad about the death of the omniscient narrator.
Eh, disagree on the omniscient narrator thing. I feel like a narrator is nearly completely unnecessary in a visual medium like comics. And the examples where the narrator just describes what's happening on page is really annoying IMO.
@@PlayerZeroStart There is more to narration than just describing what's happening. The narration can enhance the atmosphere, add details that can't be drawn or seen etc. Chris Claremont and Doug Moench with the classic moonknight run are good examples how to do great narration.
I just started really reading comics, and when you said there really weren’t any more thought bubbles I was shocked. I hadn’t even really processed that they weren’t there despite not ever really reading anything WITH fluffy bubbles! After this video, I’m sure seeing the caption boxes will have a whole new dimension
Me not realizing this is Especially surprising since I’ve been reading most of the books featuring Stephanie brown, where she becomes a secondary main character in the Robin books (and essentially shares top billing with Barbara Gordon in batgirl) and her internal monologue is separated from Tim drake and Barbara by having a unique style/ color. Particularly in Robin it’s shown in script, designed as diary entries. It’s just super fascinating to me that I just internalized this stuff without really thinking about it!
Just knowing what I do about you from your videos I am 90% sure that spot on the top of your head is driving you nuts. You look fine buddy the video was interesting and well done. Don't put so much pressure on yourself.
You know, I'd never actually noticed the lack of thought balloons in modern comics until now. Talk about a glass-shattering moment! Thanks for putting this video together, it's such an interesting subject that I've never seen anyone else talk about.
Watch our entire 40-minute conversation about thought balloons and comic book lettering by getting Nebula & CS at curiositystream.com/nerdsync or supporting me on Patreon at patreon.com/nerdsync thanks, everyone!
Hell yeah, another banger vid! I've been working on a few comics lately myself and the typography and lettering side is so much more complex then one might think. Good to get some insides 👀
I miss thought balloons, and I blame Frank Miller. In the publicity for the then-upcoming Ronin mini-series, Miller talked about how he was reexamining comics language (not just thought balloons, but speed/movement lines, and other such devices). That's why he eliminated thought balloons in his work. And when a well-respected, trendsetting creator does something, well, others follow his lead. I'd like to see you examine captions though out comics history and how they changed. Examples could include the Superman/Batman title where both of the main characters shared their thoughts with the reader, giving readers insight to their differing personalities, as well as Marvel's experimentation with captions in the early/mid-'70s (specifically Master of Kung-Fu, Marvel Premiere [Iron Fist], and Werewolf by Night). And yes, turn your script into "something," please.
Hey Scott, I think you should do a Comic Pacing video. I’ve noticed that golden and silver age comics all have more story packed into 32 pages. Modern comics have such little story actually happening. It’s a lot of inner dialog telling instead of showing us through the page.
I have always been scratching my head over “Batman: The Long Halloween” (1996) being loaded with thought captions, but there being one solitary thought balloon. Admittedly, I feel like it does contextually work.
I think it’s also interesting to view the temporal aspect from how that portrays the character too. First person narration usually seems like a character presenting themselves how they want to be viewed, whereas thought bubbles can be a contrast to that, seeing those same characters’ more impulsive and less measured thoughts. It‘s really valuable for exploring a character’s self-perception/deceptions
Yeah, FPN feels more like something that happened in the past and is recontextualized to the narrator's benefit. Bubbles make it seem more personal and like you're there with the character at the time of the event.
Scott and Hassan seem like good friends :) Video was enterntaing easily consumable and full of fun little jokes and stayed informative through it all, good job Scott.
A video on comic book pacing would be pretty cool. Another topic that I think would make for an interesting video would be on the matter of how certain plot elements and sensibilities get recycled every 20 years as a result of young writers instinctively falling back on whatever era of comics that they grew up with. For example, a few recent X-Men writers have expressed their fondness of Grant Morrison's run. Not to mention that Donny Cates is a self-professed child of the 90's and that shows in a lot of his work.
I can't believe I missed this when it came out, it was vary informant and I'm sure will be useful in the future as I tend to do my lettering myself and I know vary little about that part of the industry.
Just starting the video and you're saying it's super niche topic bit as a fledgling creator and someone who LOVES lettering, this is exactly the kind of topic I'd love to see ypu do more of. Maybe more comments later.
Another great episode! Funny I was thinking about Marvel Horror Spider-Man that Scott did today. On people's reaction to the She Hulk trailer. Many focused on the "bad CGI". Could it really be that she is a sexy woman and half monster?
My perspective is that a story with narrator captions is a story from being relayed by a storyteller possibly many weeks/months/years later, possibly after many others told the story. The thought balloons would be the storyteller telling us what the characters in the story is thinking. The move to thought captions I have found decreases the feeling of the temporal and relationship distance between the story teller and the reader. It’s like hearing the story first or second hand.
This actually is something I've thought about. You don't see a lot of wordy clouds anymore, especially for main characters. Stan Lee's overuse of the things may have contributed to the realization that comics could do without them. The thought bubble bubble burst, if you will.
I miss thought balloons. It was a great way to add depth and layers to the characters and their conversations. Too see what they're not saying, or to see them at odds with what they are saying. But I'm also pretty old school in what love. Now get off my lawn!
I was reading old Superman a little while back and was literally wondering what the fuck happened to thought bubbles in comics, interested to see this video!
I now feel like I owe thought balloons an apology. I will say I actually really dig the diary entry approach to caption boxes. Even in cases where it wouldn’t make sense for the character (which it still should), it feels like you’re reading what the character actually feels is important for you to know instead of the selection of an unseen hand. Granted, maybe they’re not overused the way regular caption boxes are in American comics. (I remember reading The Walking Dead and thinking “this would be such a worse book if you saw any given character’s unspoken inner monologue.” I can’t believe the average superhero comic has more prose than THE zombie comic) One of my least favorite approaches is the radiotelepathy in The Authority. Like, it’s already in a blue border to separate it from the regular dialogue, but someone thought they had to change the font to... this sans-serif thing. It was very off putting.
Now I want to read a comic that uses both captions and thought balloons, but most of the captions are just making fun of their past self’s thoughts. (“I think I cracked a rib”) [“It was three ribs”] (“And a leg”) [“Both legs”] (“And an arm”) [“That’s just me being dramatic”]
I think that thought balloons work particularly well during action sequences. Caption boxes tend to feel very removed during an action sequence, while a thought balloon is better at keeping the pace of whats happening.
I'm rereading the Dark Phoenix Saga after recently rereading Watchmen and some Scott Snyder Batman, and I was shocked at how different the presence of so many thought bubbles make the whole book feel, when compared to the monologue boxes and the narrator boxes.
The death of thought balloons affected the Flash. Writers, such as Gardner Fox and Cary Bates, would use thought balloons to explain what the Flash was doing. Now that thought balloons are not used, the Flash’s powers are now limited.
This got me thinking of Komi Can't Communicate where the titular character Komi-san communicates using written words on a book. Are those words supposed to be seen as speech or thoughts? This is her primary way of speaking to others, so it can be seen as speeches, but it is still written, disconnecting it from actual speech and can be seen as thought bubbles.
Thought bubbles are more disconnected from the audience than the narrative boxes. Thought bubbles let us see the characters thoughts, narrative boxes let us think the characters thoughts
I’d be super interested in that video about pacing! Or any other “comic book language” topics! Do you have any recommendations for other resources for learning more about comic book “language” and tropes? I’m used to watching and understanding movies from a film critic perspective and I can tell I’m missing a lot of cool context and art in comics from my own inexperience
I've always wondered if it's been part of an effort to make comics more filmic - everything on a screen is squared and boxy, and narration on screen is almost always past tense.
Scott should make a video on the mess that was the Archie Comics Sonic The Hedgehog series, the lawsuit, and the fallout from it which is still impacting the franchise over a decade later.
I think it's because comics are trying to be more cinematic. In movies you almost never hear a character's immediate thoughts in a scene, what they're thinking is shown in actions or facial expressions. Narration in the form of voice-over from the character's perspective that is separate from the scene itself is far more common.
That "Fat Bottomed Girls" scene in sex criminals is such a great example of how you can conjure a song into the mind of the reader, it's wild, I'm very glad you referenced it here, very on point! Also seeing Hass in anything is always a treat, especially when you don't expect to see the wizard of comicbook analysis showing up.
On the topic of sound in comics I have a pet talking point, in the belgian comic Lucky Luke every album ends with the cowboy singing the song "Lonesome cowboy". As the comic got adapted into animation, the song was too and it felt very authentic as a kid I was sure it was just a real old west song but I ended up doing research and discovered no previous source for the song than those adaptations which means y know Goscinny and Morris were just suggesting a non-existent song to ponctuate the end of each comic and it just... blows my mind. Last thing, in french the word for speech balloons and thought balloons we use is "bulle" or "bulle de pensée" which literally translate to "bubble" so y'know maybe the confusion is a french scheme.
I think we could maybe adopt the manga style thought bubble or maybe experiment with designs for thought bubbles that appear more serious while also maintaining the ethereal nature of peering into a character's thoughts
I think The Dark Knight Returns overcame the tail limitation by using color coded speech and thought balloons. My favorite use is when the captions are from the "present" where the story is being told or recorded, but the thought balloons are "in the moment" whenever the story's happening. Best of both worlds. *EDIT:* _Of course_ as soon as I write this, the video brings it up too.
Did you know the marvel animated universe on Disney xd got their own comics could you talk about those please hope u see this Scott NerdSync PLEASE SEE THIS SCOTT 🥺🥺🥺🥺
At 20:36, I thought: "So, this is the difference between a 3rd person narrative which states a character's thoughts and a first person narrative in which a character's thoughts are part of the narration?" And so, I pondered the difference. . . Yes. I think that is the difference. Yes. It does feel different. Even when both are first person narratives. And, the first person narration is more direct. . Thank you!
or you can do what michael turner and later marvel did in the early 2000s: color the word balloons differently based on who is speaking. if its jean grey, its pink, if its professor x, its blue. then you dont need to see the telepath/character, you just know cause you not color blind. simple pimple
On the topic of character-specific caption boxes in the Poe Dameron comics (I don't remember the specific issue) there are a few pages of two offpage characters recounting past events. The caption boxes are colored and lead you to assume what characters are talking. Only for it to be revealed it wasn't who you might have expected to be talking. It's hard to explain outside the context of the comic and I don't wanna give it away. But it worked incredibly well when reading it.
I feel like Garfield comics have a very interesting take on the thought bubble to the point where it almost feels as tho Jon and Garfield are dialoguing with each other. It's a bit confusing really
This is probably the best video, of something that I inherently understand, and didn’t know that I needed an explanation of. But I so needed the explanation
Really Good video! Had no idea those square boxes were called first person narrative captions, thought they were just stylized thought bubbles lol. I don't feel thought bubbles are hard to track who is talking, they don't really even need a tail to mark who is speaking. Like in that image with a Spider-Man caption box, it starts with the spider symbol and his colours. This tells the reader when you see these colours around a caption box it belongs to Spider-Man. You can do similar things with thought bubbles too so they are recognizable on their own. If at the start of the issue you establish this person thinks in this shape+colour, then even if they are not on the page, the reader knows this belongs to that character they saw earlier. I don't read too much wester comics, so not sure how readers would feel about more thought bubbles, but I def think they feel very natural, and help you connect with a character.
HOPE I GET PINNED for pointing out that the Manga Tomo-chan is a Girl is using Panels and Speech-Bubbles and Writing-Tricks to astonishing, miraculous Effects, as explained in the video '9 Ways Tomo-Chan uses Panels well'.
.... can a comment in a thread get pinned? Yeah I like the way Tomo-chan uses its pages. It's a really good 4Koma. But maybe I've just not read enough of it, I don't think it's doing much different from other manga or other 4koma series I've read personally
@@Samantha_yyz No, cant get pinned, i think, but i thought the youtuber sees it if i do this. Anyway: yeah, but i cited a video, so maybe that lists the examples how it’s actually much-different from other Manga?
I never thought that caption boxes were even thoughts! I always assumed that it was the character telling us the story. Except with Marty Pasko’s run on Saga of Swamp Thing and the previous use of the same character where it is obviously his thoughts.
I remember being confused at how many people could read each other's thoughts when I first read the Nausicaa manga ages ago. Turns out? Japan used to use 'thought balloons' to show whispering, not thought. It's not as common nowadays, but every once & a while, I'll read an 80's manga & get confused for a sec. Thoughts were (& still are) put in 'sea-urchin' balloons shaped with spikey lines, which I really like to use in combo with narration being in the boxes, instead. I wonder if there's still differences like that around the world?
In Norway we call them "thought bubbles" and "speaking bubbles", gracefully side stepping the whole balloon vs bubble war. Y'all should try it in English too, if only to trip people up and making some annoying people really really mad about something not very significant
I call it the day where heroes lost their souls. One of the things comics could do, that movies and such can't, was give us insight into the thoughts of the heroes as they would happen in real life. Claim: Peter Parker would never have become as popular as he was without giving the readers insights into his thoughts and struggles. Movies preach "Show, don't tell" but comics need to have both. I love your Earthworks microphone. They're soooo damn pretty and super good.
Personally, I think the reason Thought Bubbles went away is because of comics books shifting narrative pretensions. Comics began life emulationing prose books with third person narration, character thoughts, and dialog. Some older comics seem to not even trust the art to tell the story. Now, with modern comics, they try to emulate cinema. First person narration (if at all), dialog, and filmic cliché. The art does most of the narrative heavy lifting. I hope a day comes when comics grow to tell a story in a way that is unique to the medium with other mediums emulating it instead.
Did you know the marvel animated universe on Disney xd got their own comics could you talk about those please hope u see this Scott @NerdSync PLEASE SEE THIS SCOTT 🥺🥺🥺🥺
Dear Scott, I would like to hug Sparta, please and thank you. Have your people contact my people and hopefully we can work something out because I would truly enjoy hugging your adorable cat friend.
Funny this was brought up..Just last night I was reading some old Silver age Green Lantern and Flash comics and it took me forever to get thru because of the near never ending thought bubbles popping up..So many thoughts describing exactly what u see in the actual panels..brutal
I love it when manga uses thoughts WITHOUT balloons, like a quick reaction shot of them going "Wow he's so fast!". It helps to keep the pacing going without using thought balloons or narration.
obviously yes turn the pacing thing into a video. I have a lot of thoughts about that myself. sometimes, i find that characters say full paragraphs in an action panel, which makes it seem clunky. I also wonder about the "..." as opposed to just an absence of a dialogue bubble. not that either is right, but either choice has connotations. I could go on ... but nobody cares what I have to say ... so I hope you find it interesting.
Honestly, I think the correct answer is laziness. I began lettering just as computers became capable of replacing hand lettering. Back in the late nineties I used to print my lettering on self-adhesive paper and stick it onto art-boards. My first efforts looked like amateurish computer lettering because I was using mathematically perfect ovals instead of trying to match the slightly erratic, hand-drawn look of then-current thought balloons. So I moved to programs that let me mimic that look. Two decades later I look at comics, and most of 'em feature the perfect oval. Why? It's quicker, it saves effort, and letterers are paid by page, not by the hour. If the audience accepts it, why bother struggling for that old-school hand-drawn look? Thought balloons are easy for a hand-letterer to scribble out. Trying to match that look with a bezel-based graphics program is painfully time-intensive and tedious. So the caption box replaces it.
💜 Huge thanks to Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou for providing his lettering wisdom for this video! Check out his channel: ruclips.net/user/StripPanelNaked
💜 Also thanks to Lady Emily for voicing all the quotes in the video: ruclips.net/user/LadyEmilyPresents
Thanks for another awesome upload mr.niswander I have greatly missed your work and I am thrilled to see you on my feed again
Can I just say, I love these thumbnails! Perfect, not in your face but still intriguing
Strip Panel Naked is a GREAT channel. Everyone should check it out
Has is fantastic and a well of comics knowledge
HOPE I GET PINNED for pointing out
that the Manga Tomo-chan is a Girl is using Panels
and Speech-Bubbles and Writing-Tricks to astonishing, miraculous Effects,
as explained in the video '9 Ways Tomo-Chan uses Panels well'.
The best thought balloons were Silver Age Superman explaining to the audience that he was doing something completely bonkers. "I'll use my SUPER-VENTRILOQUISM to make it APPEAR as if YOU, the AUDIENCE can HEAR MY THOUGHTS!"
silver age superman has such weird powers that it makes you wonder if the writers just wanted him to be the most well-rounded superhero ever.
lmao
Hey, I remember that from the Jimmy Olsen comics!
@@ProjektTaku Savage Dragon creator had cool deconstruction/parody character of Superman with premise that was basically : not-Superman was first ever superhero, so when other superheroes started to appear and had cooler superpowers than his "jump high, punch hard and be invincible" he would kill them and steal their powers, that's how he "learned" to fly and heat vision, x-ray, etc.
I may typed something wrong, but I am definitely right about premise.
But also historically/canonically Superman always had power extension/upgrade since his creators, because already by his creators he had his for example hearing upgraded from normal hearing when he had to hang behind window to hear shit (also it's why Clark Kent works as reporter, because OG Superman couldn't just hear crime around his city let alone whole world like in more modern interpretations) to legit superhearing when he could hear stuff that were behind many walls and galsses and doors.
Also Superman is perhaps only Superhero that was substantially retconed by creators as well, when they added Kents to his origin in Superman #1 (originally he grew in orphanage)
@@FirstnameLastname-my7bz wow, not-superman sounds really cool.
I like to think superman's powers just grew as he learned more about himself and his limits, since he does train.
Now I'm having the idea for a sort of immortal knight character, whose thoughts are conveyed in stylized ribbons that billow and fold around them, and hang off them loosely. Like there's a panel looking down from the top of the building, and their feet step in and are wrapped in their thought ribbons. Or they've shouldered their huge broadsword, and the ribbon is coiled around the blade. Occasionally the ribbons act as the borders of panels. And there might be a dramatic moment where they're swing their sword at someone, with the ribbon following the arc of the blade, conveying their thought of "Die, Thing of Evil! Return to the Pit!".
It would be a lot harder to implement because it's not a balloon or caption box hanging in space. It would be integrated into the art itself, and require a lot of careful planning with the letterer to make it work. But I think it would be cool as heck.
I always thought it was "Speech Ballon" and "Thought Bubble" respectively based on the '"tail" of each. The "Balloon" having a full and connected neck/tail, and The "Bubble" having smaller bubbles that sort of percolate up to the main bubble.
I've always called them both bubbles. Speech bubble, thought bubble.
I call them both bubbles
Another problem with narration boxes: they can be confused with narration text boxes. If you have an unseen narrator (assumed to be the writer) who might have a bit of personality (Stan Lee being a major one), then when you see a text box saying "What's this?", you might be confused as to whether it's the narrator or the character. Sure, different colors and the like, but a thought bubble (I prefer "bubble" over "balloon") makes it clear it's the character, and the narrator can continue to be personality driven and quirky in the text boxes, without confusion in the slightest.
Related: I remember that when I was reading the current Batgirls comic, which has its own snarky narrator. But for the longest time I assumed it was Steph cause it sounded most like her and I was so used to narration boxes that I assume the narrator is a characters thoughts.
Yeah I feel that's more a case of badly executed rather than problem with the tool. As you say there are ways to avoid such an issue. This toe feels like if I was looking at a panel where two characters have there heads close to each other and it's unclear who's head the thought bubble Is coming from and calling it a problem of thought bubbles
@@ethansmall581 that's funny, Batgirls is the first thing that came to my mind too.
Plus it literally looks like bubbles foaming up. Why are people even triggered by it's name?
This and several other reasons might be why the narrator voice has dissapeared. A narrator with a strong personality will pull you right out of the story and make your remember that you are just reading a story. This is why youtubers who narrate using an idiosyncratic speech pattern (the snarky or ironic voice for instance) draw too much attention to themselves when the attention should be on the informative content.
I’m surprised we didn’t get some examples of non-standard thought bubbles. Like Impulse’s picture thought bubbles, which made it seem less like thinking in words and more like something running through Bart’s rampant imagination. Or even the thought bubbles in Bendis’s Mighty Avengers, which always seemed like spur-of-the-moment thoughts and even sometimes purposely contradicted what the character was actually saying.
Jimmy Palmiotti & Amanda Conner also used stylized thought balloons during their runs on Harley Quinn (usually constructed out of diamond shapes to match her motif) and Starfire (who occasionally did picture bubbles like Impulse).
Plus, there have been other ways to represent telepathy like in Morrison's JLA where the telepathic bubble was a lumpy, wavy version of a speech callout.
Bart Allen is the cutest and the best for that 😭💜
there's also Sandman where the balloons of the Endless are all* unique from humanity's
Apologies for the couple of random music volume spikes. Not sure what happened there, but I'll watch out for those in the future. There are captions in case you can't hear what I'm saying.
In European comics, which is mostly humour and adventure stories rather than super heroes, the thought balloon is still going strong. The narration boxes are still dedicated to the all-knowing narrator. So whenever I pick up American super hero comics after I've been away from them for awhile, I need to remind myself that all the boxes aren't pure narration, but a character's thoughts. I think just using the character narrations the same way but in cloud shapes instead of boxes would make it more clear and wouldn't crave the death of the classic narration also.
so much this, european comics have squares for the all knowing narrator, thought bubbles for thoughts and speech ballons for spoken words, and honestly i like them this way.
This combined way is simple yet effective and very clear for the reader!
My personal, earliest awareness of this is the Punisher’s “War Journal” monologue which did feel unique and weird mixed in with regular speech and thought bubbles.
But it’s interesting that “bubbles” and “balloons” are seen as too silly for the medium. They just refer to how it looks, not the content of the thoughts. It’s one thing for the Punisher to be so self-serious, but as a general practice it feels like too much grimdark and insecure. Like, calm down - no one is going to disparage your literature because you dot your i with a heart.
I'm pretty new to comics but I LOVE details like this that get overlooked so much when they really are so crucial. As a newer reader I notice a lot just how little details like these can make a difference in whether or not I can even easily read or follow along without difficulty.
In my own comic I use thought balloons together with caption boxes and for a very specific reason-they serve two different purposes-the self-aware character vs the unselfconscious character.
I use word balloons to depict internal reactions the character does not have control over whereas caption boxes are the character remembering the situation after the fact. This sets up a dynamic for me where the character is a somewhat unreliable narrator and I can show that. The caption box may say a situation occurred one way while the panel (depicting the immediate moment) shows something else and the thought balloon can relate the same piece of information but unfiltered by memory or the desire to cultivate one’s appearance.
For instance, the caption box may say: “I didn’t like his tone and I told him so” while the thought balloon will say, “I really don’t like this guy’s tone”. It becomes clear the character _wanted_ to tell the guy off but didn’t actually. The panel now indicates to the reader that this character tells white lies about events and are insecure enough to retell a story differently to make themselves look better. This is the root of a lot of jokes.
Now, I don’t exactly stick to the classic thought balloon. Mine are kind of wobbly rectangles of focused lines (more like Manga) so I’m clearly not entirely comfortable with campy traditional balloons, but I still find them very necessary to the storytelling.
Shout yourself out and your comic, dude
Sounds like some cool stuff bud
That's perfect! You're really smart.
I always loved Bart Allen's imagery-based thought bubbles! It fits perfectly for comics and I really wish more series/characters used them in a similar fashion.
The great thing about those is that they seemed less like your typical inner monolgue and more like something quickly going through Bart’s imagination.
I still can't get over the fact people call them a "thought balloon" like aren't they bubbles or clouds? 😅😂
Yeah I'm so used to bubble that hearing "balloon" is just strange to me.
Yes
Yeah that's super weird to me, I've only ever called them thought bubbles.
All the reference books I've read and the pros I've talked to call them all "balloons." Never heard anyone in the business use the word "bubbles" for anything.
So there's a point in gweenpoole strikes back issue 4 where she's talking to the reader through Morse code and it's like this yellow box was a little arrow coming from it pointing to the origin of the Morse code and underneath it is her pink caption boxes (which represent her thoughts in this comic) which spell it out what she is saying, which seems like a lot of space being taken up for her to just do this one gag it only lasts for like 3 panels, but it's very interesting
But Gwen poole knows she's in a co,ic and that we are able to see her thoughts in the frist places like hyper aware and yet she chooses to uses mores coad Wich leads to her getting caught so what is even going on?😵💫
Hassan's comment about the pacing of manga being much faster than western comics actually made a lot of sense to me as a dyslexic reader! It's very easy for my eyes and attention to "slide" across a page too quickly to absorb western books and sometimes comic books, but the speed fits EXACTLY with manga. Thanks for helping me figure out why that works!
I felt this, even as a non-dyslexic reader. The speed of manga is one of the main draws - and one of the reasons I tend to prefer manga to anime, where the pacing is "one major story unit per episode," no matter what happens in that story unit.
yeah. Manga flows very well page to page. Its probably because of the better panelling aswell.
Yeah, this derives from Osamu Tezuka's cinematic techniques that are really the foundation of all modern manga. Following his emergence there was a great deal of thought about this kind of thing and different methods used to achieve it among the generation that was negotiating the forms of manga and gekiga.
but, yeah, manga flows
That explains why I get sleepy reading comics, but not manga.
@@stephenbradford8524 depends also on whether you're watching an old or new anime series, the latter in most cases used to get started a couple or so years after the manga it's based on starts and then release episodes weekly from there alongside the manga that also pubblishes chapters weekly, issue is that one chapter alone doesn't fill the 20 minute runtime of anime episodes without some serious stretching, an episode usually encompasses 3 manga chapters, which obviously means that they must they'll eventually run out of material to adapt if they don't slow down, which means slowing the pacing down and adding filler content not present in the source material is a necessity, anime today work with a more lenient seasonal release, where they'll start relatively soon after a manga series starts just like the old days, but make new seasons of 20 od so chunks of episodes every couple or so years, which makes filler basically obsolete, they still do some, but not to the degree where entire story arcs are made up because the manga is being published at a much faster pace with monthly and especially weekly chapter releases so unless a bunch of hiatuses slowing down work happen, the anime stuff are golden.
There's also series that aren't based on spurce material which obviously have better pacing, especially the older stuff since they're in full control of where the story goes, but they're absolutely not as common as manga adaptations in the industry are.
I miss thought balloons. They where always interesting to read, even if they where just exposition machines sometimes. But, I’m more sad about the death of the omniscient narrator.
Strongly agree.
Eh, disagree on the omniscient narrator thing. I feel like a narrator is nearly completely unnecessary in a visual medium like comics. And the examples where the narrator just describes what's happening on page is really annoying IMO.
The Watcher died?
@@PlayerZeroStart There is more to narration than just describing what's happening. The narration can enhance the atmosphere, add details that can't be drawn or seen etc. Chris Claremont and Doug Moench with the classic moonknight run are good examples how to do great narration.
I just started really reading comics, and when you said there really weren’t any more thought bubbles I was shocked. I hadn’t even really processed that they weren’t there despite not ever really reading anything WITH fluffy bubbles! After this video, I’m sure seeing the caption boxes will have a whole new dimension
Me not realizing this is Especially surprising since I’ve been reading most of the books featuring Stephanie brown, where she becomes a secondary main character in the Robin books (and essentially shares top billing with Barbara Gordon in batgirl) and her internal monologue is separated from Tim drake and Barbara by having a unique style/ color. Particularly in Robin it’s shown in script, designed as diary entries. It’s just super fascinating to me that I just internalized this stuff without really thinking about it!
Just knowing what I do about you from your videos I am 90% sure that spot on the top of your head is driving you nuts. You look fine buddy the video was interesting and well done. Don't put so much pressure on yourself.
You know, I'd never actually noticed the lack of thought balloons in modern comics until now. Talk about a glass-shattering moment! Thanks for putting this video together, it's such an interesting subject that I've never seen anyone else talk about.
Watch our entire 40-minute conversation about thought balloons and comic book lettering by getting Nebula & CS at curiositystream.com/nerdsync or supporting me on Patreon at patreon.com/nerdsync
thanks, everyone!
Oh it is in Patreon too? All your content for nebula will be in Patreon? I understand the paywall but not the country restrictions
Hi Scott! Glad you're still making thought provoking videos about comics. I hope you're taking care of yourself. Sending good vibes!
Hell yeah, another banger vid! I've been working on a few comics lately myself and the typography and lettering side is so much more complex then one might think. Good to get some insides 👀
I miss thought balloons, and I blame Frank Miller. In the publicity for the then-upcoming Ronin mini-series, Miller talked about how he was reexamining comics language (not just thought balloons, but speed/movement lines, and other such devices). That's why he eliminated thought balloons in his work. And when a well-respected, trendsetting creator does something, well, others follow his lead.
I'd like to see you examine captions though out comics history and how they changed. Examples could include the Superman/Batman title where both of the main characters shared their thoughts with the reader, giving readers insight to their differing personalities, as well as Marvel's experimentation with captions in the early/mid-'70s (specifically Master of Kung-Fu, Marvel Premiere [Iron Fist], and Werewolf by Night).
And yes, turn your script into "something," please.
Hey Scott, I think you should do a Comic Pacing video. I’ve noticed that golden and silver age comics all have more story packed into 32 pages. Modern comics have such little story actually happening. It’s a lot of inner dialog telling instead of showing us through the page.
Ayyy, "words are thought-fossils"! 🙂
Also, fun fact, the italian name for comics is a reference to the thought/speech clouds, "fumetti", "smokeys"
I have always been scratching my head over “Batman: The Long Halloween” (1996) being loaded with thought captions, but there being one solitary thought balloon. Admittedly, I feel like it does contextually work.
Already saw the interview on Nebula, and you know what, I think it’s pretty great.
I think it’s also interesting to view the temporal aspect from how that portrays the character too. First person narration usually seems like a character presenting themselves how they want to be viewed, whereas thought bubbles can be a contrast to that, seeing those same characters’ more impulsive and less measured thoughts. It‘s really valuable for exploring a character’s self-perception/deceptions
Yeah, FPN feels more like something that happened in the past and is recontextualized to the narrator's benefit. Bubbles make it seem more personal and like you're there with the character at the time of the event.
Scott and Hassan seem like good friends :)
Video was enterntaing easily consumable and full of fun little jokes and stayed informative through it all, good job Scott.
Can't wait to watch this one after work. Thanks for putting out THOUGHT provoking content for years!
Relate to this so hard 😂
I would’ve never thought about this difference between caption boxes and thought balloons!!
A video on comic book pacing would be pretty cool. Another topic that I think would make for an interesting video would be on the matter of how certain plot elements and sensibilities get recycled every 20 years as a result of young writers instinctively falling back on whatever era of comics that they grew up with. For example, a few recent X-Men writers have expressed their fondness of Grant Morrison's run. Not to mention that Donny Cates is a self-professed child of the 90's and that shows in a lot of his work.
I watched this on Nebula and just came by to say Great Job! and Thank You!
I’d love a video about comic book pacing! Been something I’ve been thinking about for a while
I can't believe I missed this when it came out, it was vary informant and I'm sure will be useful in the future as I tend to do my lettering myself and I know vary little about that part of the industry.
If every culture has word bubbles, is it possible aliens invented them? Maybe ancient aliens communicated using thought bubble holograms!
Just starting the video and you're saying it's super niche topic bit as a fledgling creator and someone who LOVES lettering, this is exactly the kind of topic I'd love to see ypu do more of. Maybe more comments later.
Another great episode! Funny I was thinking about Marvel Horror Spider-Man that Scott did today. On people's reaction to the She Hulk trailer. Many focused on the "bad CGI". Could it really be that she is a sexy woman and half monster?
My perspective is that a story with narrator captions is a story from being relayed by a storyteller possibly many weeks/months/years later, possibly after many others told the story. The thought balloons would be the storyteller telling us what the characters in the story is thinking.
The move to thought captions I have found decreases the feeling of the temporal and relationship distance between the story teller and the reader. It’s like hearing the story first or second hand.
This actually is something I've thought about. You don't see a lot of wordy clouds anymore, especially for main characters.
Stan Lee's overuse of the things may have contributed to the realization that comics could do without them. The thought bubble bubble burst, if you will.
That's very clever
Excellent video Scott! I’m glad to be a Nebula subscriber so I can catch all the exclusive content from you there too!
I miss thought balloons. It was a great way to add depth and layers to the characters and their conversations. Too see what they're not saying, or to see them at odds with what they are saying. But I'm also pretty old school in what love. Now get off my lawn!
I was reading old Superman a little while back and was literally wondering what the fuck happened to thought bubbles in comics, interested to see this video!
I now feel like I owe thought balloons an apology.
I will say I actually really dig the diary entry approach to caption boxes. Even in cases where it wouldn’t make sense for the character (which it still should), it feels like you’re reading what the character actually feels is important for you to know instead of the selection of an unseen hand.
Granted, maybe they’re not overused the way regular caption boxes are in American comics. (I remember reading The Walking Dead and thinking “this would be such a worse book if you saw any given character’s unspoken inner monologue.” I can’t believe the average superhero comic has more prose than THE zombie comic)
One of my least favorite approaches is the radiotelepathy in The Authority. Like, it’s already in a blue border to separate it from the regular dialogue, but someone thought they had to change the font to... this sans-serif thing. It was very off putting.
Now I want to read a comic that uses both captions and thought balloons, but most of the captions are just making fun of their past self’s thoughts.
(“I think I cracked a rib”)
[“It was three ribs”]
(“And a leg”)
[“Both legs”]
(“And an arm”)
[“That’s just me being dramatic”]
I think that thought balloons work particularly well during action sequences. Caption boxes tend to feel very removed during an action sequence, while a thought balloon is better at keeping the pace of whats happening.
I'm rereading the Dark Phoenix Saga after recently rereading Watchmen and some Scott Snyder Batman, and I was shocked at how different the presence of so many thought bubbles make the whole book feel, when compared to the monologue boxes and the narrator boxes.
Great video, Scott! Please bring back Comic Misconceptions.
The death of thought balloons affected the Flash. Writers, such as Gardner Fox and Cary Bates, would use thought balloons to explain what the Flash was doing. Now that thought balloons are not used, the Flash’s powers are now limited.
Been wondering this same thing recently, thank you for making this video.
wow i didn't even notice thought balloons were phased out in comics until this video
This got me thinking of Komi Can't Communicate where the titular character Komi-san communicates using written words on a book. Are those words supposed to be seen as speech or thoughts? This is her primary way of speaking to others, so it can be seen as speeches, but it is still written, disconnecting it from actual speech and can be seen as thought bubbles.
Wooow. First time seeing Hass face. Ive been following his channel for years. So crazy to add a face to the voice
Thought bubbles are more disconnected from the audience than the narrative boxes. Thought bubbles let us see the characters thoughts, narrative boxes let us think the characters thoughts
I’d be super interested in that video about pacing! Or any other “comic book language” topics!
Do you have any recommendations for other resources for learning more about comic book “language” and tropes? I’m used to watching and understanding movies from a film critic perspective and I can tell I’m missing a lot of cool context and art in comics from my own inexperience
Check Hassan's channel, he's a lot more technical about comics in his videos
You always give me a ton to think about, Scott! Love ya! Be well!
I've always wondered if it's been part of an effort to make comics more filmic - everything on a screen is squared and boxy, and narration on screen is almost always past tense.
Of course you’re a Motion City Soundtrack fan you wonderful nerd! That’s my favorite band! I perked right up when I saw your shirt haha
Thanks, V For Vendetta, you started this!
Maybe, IDK, I haven't watched the video yet.
Tought bubble? In another timeline we might have ended with thoughts halos.
"words are thoughts fossils" eheh I got that reference before the promo
Scott should make a video on the mess that was the Archie Comics Sonic The Hedgehog series, the lawsuit, and the fallout from it which is still impacting the franchise over a decade later.
I believe he made a video on that a few years ago.
@@renjigraal4970 It seems that there was a Super Suits video on it five years ago, but I feel there's so much more to it than was discussed there
I blame David Lynch's Dune for killing thought bubbles to voice-overs
That girl sounded like The Iluminaughty (or however "triangle mom" spells it.
Not even finished and loving this video (look, a mid-video thought)! Please make a comic book pacing video. Always such an interesting subject.
amazing work as always my friend. love you, great work, muah!
I think it's because comics are trying to be more cinematic. In movies you almost never hear a character's immediate thoughts in a scene, what they're thinking is shown in actions or facial expressions. Narration in the form of voice-over from the character's perspective that is separate from the scene itself is far more common.
That "Fat Bottomed Girls" scene in sex criminals is such a great example of how you can conjure a song into the mind of the reader, it's wild, I'm very glad you referenced it here, very on point! Also seeing Hass in anything is always a treat, especially when you don't expect to see the wizard of comicbook analysis showing up.
On the topic of sound in comics I have a pet talking point, in the belgian comic Lucky Luke every album ends with the cowboy singing the song "Lonesome cowboy". As the comic got adapted into animation, the song was too and it felt very authentic as a kid I was sure it was just a real old west song but I ended up doing research and discovered no previous source for the song than those adaptations which means y know Goscinny and Morris were just suggesting a non-existent song to ponctuate the end of each comic and it just... blows my mind. Last thing, in french the word for speech balloons and thought balloons we use is "bulle" or "bulle de pensée" which literally translate to "bubble" so y'know maybe the confusion is a french scheme.
"Thinks" Cloud is what I've known them as for a while.
Don't have Twitter but i would love a video on time in comics
Mannn. I wish I bought one of those mugs when I had the chance. I always wanted one
I think we could maybe adopt the manga style thought bubble or maybe experiment with designs for thought bubbles that appear more serious while also maintaining the ethereal nature of peering into a character's thoughts
🤓
Then get writing that comic
Honestly I like the way manga does it, it feels weirdly natural.
I think The Dark Knight Returns overcame the tail limitation by using color coded speech and thought balloons.
My favorite use is when the captions are from the "present" where the story is being told or recorded, but the thought balloons are "in the moment" whenever the story's happening.
Best of both worlds.
*EDIT:* _Of course_ as soon as I write this, the video brings it up too.
Wasn’t expecting it to also be released today! Nice surprise
Did you know the marvel animated universe on Disney xd got their own comics could you talk about those please hope u see this Scott NerdSync PLEASE SEE THIS SCOTT 🥺🥺🥺🥺
28:00 is interesting to me, as I've noticed one purpose of dialogue in hentai is to keep your eyes on the panel for longer.
At 20:36, I thought: "So, this is the difference between a 3rd person narrative which states a character's thoughts and a first person narrative in which a character's thoughts are part of the narration?" And so, I pondered the difference.
.
.
Yes.
I think that is the difference.
Yes. It does feel different. Even when both are first person narratives. And, the first person narration is more direct.
.
Thank you!
I think you're on to something, but I think it's closer to third person omniscient vs third person limited
or you can do what michael turner and later marvel did in the early 2000s: color the word balloons differently based on who is speaking. if its jean grey, its pink, if its professor x, its blue. then you dont need to see the telepath/character, you just know cause you not color blind. simple pimple
That helps explain why I find modern comics so confusing . I’m not sure if I’m reading a dialogue box or a thought bubble expression.
On the topic of character-specific caption boxes in the Poe Dameron comics (I don't remember the specific issue) there are a few pages of two offpage characters recounting past events. The caption boxes are colored and lead you to assume what characters are talking. Only for it to be revealed it wasn't who you might have expected to be talking. It's hard to explain outside the context of the comic and I don't wanna give it away. But it worked incredibly well when reading it.
I feel like Garfield comics have a very interesting take on the thought bubble to the point where it almost feels as tho Jon and Garfield are dialoguing with each other. It's a bit confusing really
This is probably the best video, of something that I inherently understand, and didn’t know that I needed an explanation of. But I so needed the explanation
Really Good video!
Had no idea those square boxes were called first person narrative captions, thought they were just stylized thought bubbles lol.
I don't feel thought bubbles are hard to track who is talking, they don't really even need a tail to mark who is speaking.
Like in that image with a Spider-Man caption box, it starts with the spider symbol and his colours. This tells the reader when you see these colours around a caption box it belongs to Spider-Man. You can do similar things with thought bubbles too so they are recognizable on their own.
If at the start of the issue you establish this person thinks in this shape+colour, then even if they are not on the page, the reader knows this belongs to that character they saw earlier.
I don't read too much wester comics, so not sure how readers would feel about more thought bubbles, but I def think they feel very natural, and help you connect with a character.
HOPE I GET PINNED for pointing out
that the Manga Tomo-chan is a Girl is using Panels
and Speech-Bubbles and Writing-Tricks to astonishing, miraculous Effects,
as explained in the video '9 Ways Tomo-Chan uses Panels well'.
.... can a comment in a thread get pinned?
Yeah I like the way Tomo-chan uses its pages. It's a really good 4Koma.
But maybe I've just not read enough of it, I don't think it's doing much different from other manga or other 4koma series I've read personally
@@Samantha_yyz No, cant get pinned, i think, but i thought the youtuber sees it if i do this.
Anyway: yeah, but i cited a video, so maybe that lists the examples how it’s actually much-different from other Manga?
I never thought that caption boxes were even thoughts! I always assumed that it was the character telling us the story. Except with Marty Pasko’s run on Saga of Swamp Thing and the previous use of the same character where it is obviously his thoughts.
I remember being confused at how many people could read each other's thoughts when I first read the Nausicaa manga ages ago. Turns out? Japan used to use 'thought balloons' to show whispering, not thought. It's not as common nowadays, but every once & a while, I'll read an 80's manga & get confused for a sec. Thoughts were (& still are) put in 'sea-urchin' balloons shaped with spikey lines, which I really like to use in combo with narration being in the boxes, instead. I wonder if there's still differences like that around the world?
In Norway we call them "thought bubbles" and "speaking bubbles", gracefully side stepping the whole balloon vs bubble war.
Y'all should try it in English too, if only to trip people up and making some annoying people really really mad about something not very significant
I call it the day where heroes lost their souls. One of the things comics could do, that movies and such can't, was give us insight into the thoughts of the heroes as they would happen in real life.
Claim: Peter Parker would never have become as popular as he was without giving the readers insights into his thoughts and struggles.
Movies preach "Show, don't tell" but comics need to have both.
I love your Earthworks microphone. They're soooo damn pretty and super good.
Personally, I think the reason Thought Bubbles went away is because of comics books shifting narrative pretensions. Comics began life emulationing prose books with third person narration, character thoughts, and dialog. Some older comics seem to not even trust the art to tell the story. Now, with modern comics, they try to emulate cinema. First person narration (if at all), dialog, and filmic cliché. The art does most of the narrative heavy lifting.
I hope a day comes when comics grow to tell a story in a way that is unique to the medium with other mediums emulating it instead.
As a comic strip artist, I can’t imagine ever giving up my sweet, sweet thought bubbles. You will pry them out of my cold, dead hand, comic industry!
Did you know the marvel animated universe on Disney xd got their own comics could you talk about those please hope u see this Scott @NerdSync PLEASE SEE THIS SCOTT 🥺🥺🥺🥺
Dear Scott,
I would like to hug Sparta, please and thank you. Have your people contact my people and hopefully we can work something out because I would truly enjoy hugging your adorable cat friend.
Funny this was brought up..Just last night I was reading some old Silver age Green Lantern and Flash comics and it took me forever to get thru because of the near never ending thought bubbles popping up..So many thoughts describing exactly what u see in the actual panels..brutal
I love it when manga uses thoughts WITHOUT balloons, like a quick reaction shot of them going "Wow he's so fast!". It helps to keep the pacing going without using thought balloons or narration.
That's how i tend to represent thoughts when I comic. Just floating words, almost part of the environment
I just finished Probably Not Aliens and find this on RUclips l. Awesome day.
"And for this I interview my totally real friend who isn't just me with glasses"
trying to pull of a clarck interviewing superman I see...
Btw, GOOD VIBES! You are awesome and it's honestly a joy to watch your videos! Thank you for all you do!
obviously yes turn the pacing thing into a video.
I have a lot of thoughts about that myself.
sometimes, i find that characters say full paragraphs in an action panel, which makes it seem clunky.
I also wonder about the "..." as opposed to just an absence of a dialogue bubble. not that either is right, but either choice has connotations.
I could go on ... but nobody cares what I have to say ... so I hope you find it interesting.
Where are my thought balloons in this video!? I'm asking for milk but Scott doesn't understand me.
- Sparta the cat.
::zoom!:: Runs to podcast. So glad you’re back! Also also, heeey Sparta!
Honestly, I think the correct answer is laziness. I began lettering just as computers became capable of replacing hand lettering. Back in the late nineties I used to print my lettering on self-adhesive paper and stick it onto art-boards. My first efforts looked like amateurish computer lettering because I was using mathematically perfect ovals instead of trying to match the slightly erratic, hand-drawn look of then-current thought balloons. So I moved to programs that let me mimic that look. Two decades later I look at comics, and most of 'em feature the perfect oval. Why? It's quicker, it saves effort, and letterers are paid by page, not by the hour. If the audience accepts it, why bother struggling for that old-school hand-drawn look?
Thought balloons are easy for a hand-letterer to scribble out. Trying to match that look with a bezel-based graphics program is painfully time-intensive and tedious. So the caption box replaces it.