Speech Bubbles: Difference between revisions

m
Mass update links
m (Mass update links)
m (Mass update links)
Line 42:
* ''[[The Invisibles]]'' uses this to good effect.
* And don't forget the distinctive [[Medium Awareness|yellow bubbles]] and [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a8/DeadpoolYellowBoxes.jpg/250px-DeadpoolYellowBoxes.jpg boxes] utilized by ''[[Deadpool]].'' [[No Fourth Wall|He certainly can't]].
* This has been in the ''[[Doctor Who Magazine (Magazine)|Doctor Who Magazine]]'' comic strip a few times. Most notably, the distinctive voice-treatment given to Daleks is represented as an angular font in a jagged speech bubble. This has been the case since they had their own strip in ''TV Century 21'' in the 1960s.
* Several characters in ''[[The Sandman]]'' have distinctive speech bubbles or fonts -- each of the Endless and Matthew, in particular. At one point, Matthew "imitates" Morpheus with a speech bubble that looks like his. Delirium's speech bubbles contain wild swirls of color and wavering text, but when she was Delight (and sane), the colors were subdued and straight, and the text linear.
** [[The Grim Reaper|Death]] is the sanest and most down-to-earth of the Endless and the only one whose Speech Bubbles are completely normal.
Line 58:
* The Preservers in ''[[Elf Quest]]'' originally spoke with wavy lettering, and when the series collected for the first color edition each preserver spoke with its own color of bubble. This was dropped in the Marvel reprint which was completely re-lettered, and the new lettering carried over into some collected editions. The DC Collector's Edition and [http://www.elfquest.com/gallery/OnlineComics/OQ/OQ10/DisplayOQ10.html?page=7 Online Edition] of the Original Series use new computer lettering, restoring the wavy Preserver style and colored bubbles.
** ''[[Elf Quest]]'' also used to represent telepathy (sending) by [http://www.elfquest.com/gallery/OnlineComics/SABM/SABM01/DisplaySABM01.html?page=21 parallelogram-shaped speech bubbles with sawtooth edges]. This apparently just became too much hard work, and was eventually replaced by [http://www.elfquest.com/gallery/OnlineComics/KOBW/KOBW01/DisplayKOBW01.html?page=12 bubbles comprising two concentric ovals], although as you've seen from the above examples some of the original versions survive in the online edition..
* In ''[[PS 238PS238]]'', aspiring supervillain and [[Take Over the World|world conqueror]] Zodon has a chip inserted into his head to make him stop cussing all the time. The innocuous words that replace his attempts to swear are rendered in a blocky font.
** When he really goes {{smallcaps|caroling}} ape-{{smallcaps|beans}}, he starts singing show tunes.
** Nick Zerhakker in ''[[Skin Horse]]'' has a similar problem. He doesn't sing, though. Yet.
* Depending on the writer, various [[Marvel Universe]] characters have distinctive font and speech bubble styles, including [[Fantastic Four|Ben Grimm (pretty much all the time) and Johnny Storm (whose speech bubbles take on a fiery appearance when he's using his powers)]]; and Wolverine, particularly when [[Unstoppable Rage|berserk]].
* In [[Don Rosa]]'s early ''[[The Pertwillaby Papers]]'' series, nearly every character had their own specific font and speech bubble design, reflecting their personalities. The tradition carried over to his Scrooge McDuck stories in part later on.
* In ''[[Atomic Robo]]'' the titular character's speech bubbles are blue with small zig-zags on both sides and have a lightning bolt shaped tail. Helsingard as a [[Brain In Aa Jar]] has brown square bubbles. Everyone has a jagged outline over a radio and a dotted one when they're whispering.
* The various ''[[Transformers]]'' series use different bubbles for the Transformers. Originally, they were pretty basic bubbles, with the edges of the arrow leading up to the bubble resembling a stylized jagged lightning bolt, like had been often used with television and radio dialogue. Later issues game them a squared bubble. [[Cosmic Horror|Unicron]] got bubbles edged in rippled darkness and blood-red lines. Later series added more effects, often to differentiate not only individual characters but their state. ([[Dream Wave]] Volume 3 Megatron, for example, had black speech bubbles with white dialogue.)
* In Teri Sue Wood's ''Wandering Star'', all the characters have elaborately hand-drawn dialogue, except for a group of mind-controlled slaves; theirs is typewritten.
* ''[[Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire|Buck Godot: Zap Gun For Hire]]'' uses different bubble styles and fonts for different alien races. [http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buckcomic.php?date=20080322 This page alone] has thirteen different bubbles.
* Normal humans as well as the titular character of [[Hellboy]] have white speech bubbles with standard comic book font and short trails. Demons and [[Eldritch Abomination|horrors]] generally have red or purple speech bubles with longer, wavy trails and sharp letters. Aquatic creatures have blue speech bubbles. The demon Ualac goes from normal white bubbles to wavy golden ones when he becomes the [[One-Winged Angel|beast of the apocalypse]] .
* Disney had for a time comics about baby versions of their characters. Baby Gyro Gearloose spoke in speech bubbles outlined by equations and formulas. Considering Gyro is the inventor as well as being terribly scatterbrained, that it probably represents that his mind's elsewhere while he's talking.
* In ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (Comic Book)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures]]'' when a character is upside down, the text in their speech balloon would be printed upside down as well.
** This is quite a common gag in many comics.
* The biochips in ''[[Rogue Trooper]]'' have sort of semi-circular indentations in the edges of their bubbles.
* In ''[[Atavar]]'', the [[Robot War|Uos']] speech bubbles are square and all their dialogue is '''bold'''. In the first few panels, before Atavar gains the ability to speak their language, the Kalen's dialogue is represented by random Greek letters.
* In ''[[Pogo (Comiccomic Stripstrip)|Pogo]]'', P. T. Bridgeport spoke in circus posters, Deacon Mushrat used Olde Englishe lettering, and Sarcophagus MacAbre (the natural-born buzzard) spoke like a sympathy note.
* The speech bubbles in ''[[Cerebus the Aardvark]]'' could be incredibly expressive and as artistic as anything else that was going on in the comic, especially when Cerebus was drunk, mad, or having an argument with himself.
* Null of [[Halcyon]] seems to 'speak' through black narration boxes with white text, which doesn't stop anyone from hearing him. The font also changes when characters are speaking in a foreign language, a la [[Discworld]].
* Manfred Schmidt, author of German comic ''[[Nick Knatterton (Comic Strip)|Nick Knatterton]]'', commented that they were a primitive tool in his POV - "bubbles coming from the heads, eyes, ears, noses or mouths of characters to indicate what they think, see, hear, smell or say".
* In a number of 2000AD strips, including [[Judge Dredd]] and [[ABC Warriors]], Robots speak with baloons that have harsh angled edges rather than curved, occasionally with a different typeface from organic characters (dependent on the letterer).
 
Line 82:
== Manga & Manhwa ==
* Many [[Scanlation|Scanlations]] groups use this to great effect.
* ''[[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]]'' does this, at least in the English manga. The shinigami speak in a different font than the human characters.
* ''~D.N.Angel~'' uses this trope as well. Dark speaks in a curly fancy kind of font.
* The Occult Club president from ''[[Mahoraba]]'' alternated within each word between two different methods of writing Japanese, hiragana and katakana, and the scanlation I read represented this by capitalizing eVeRy OtHeR lEtTeR.
Line 93:
* ''[[Fruits Basket]]'' uses odd-shaped panels and unusual fonts throughout to convey emotions.
* At one point in ''[[Sekirei]]'', [[Bottle Fairy|Kazehana]] greets Minato upon his returning home and her dialogue appears in heart-shaped speech bubbles... at which point Miya [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|scolds her about this]], claiming they're against the rules.
* ''[[Ai Yori Aoshi (Manga)|Ai Yori Aoshi]]'' and other manga with romance in the plot often have bubbly speech bubbles to represent [[Shrinking Violet|nervous]] babbling. Sometimes the bubbles will have their own [[Sweat Drop]].
 
 
Line 101:
 
== Manhwa ==
* ''[[Priest (Manhwamanhwa)|Priest]]'' uses this a lot; Protagonist Ivan, spirit guide Belial, big bad Temozerala, his demon lieutenants when they transform, and the zombies all have their own fonts.
 
 
Line 109:
 
== Video Games ==
* In ''[[Saga Frontier (Video Game)|Saga Frontier]]'', the words in your character's speech bubbles are different colors than everyone else's. If you run into another one of the main characters during a storyline, their words are the same color as your own.
* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' represents characters' speech in speech bubbles. Players can choose the color of their bubbles and text.
* In ''[[Star Control]] 2'', each race's speech is subtitled in a different font. These vaguely match their personalities, so the Ur-Quan have large, bold text while the Utwig have thin, wobbly, depressed-looking text.
* The ''[[Paper Mario (Video Gamefranchise)|Paper Mario]]'' series love to play with the speech bubbles. Characters talking normally have a regular rounded bubble with normal font size. If a character is extremely shocked or angry, not only the font goes all caps, but the font size grows HUGE and sometimes the speech bubble becomes more pointy instead of round. Characters who are scared or angry may use fonts that wiggle and characters who are very quiet or growing quiet have the font shrink and/or become a light gray instead of the standard black. Truly evil characters have a purple speech bubble.
** In ''Paper Mario 2'' at least, Boss characters also have a different ''sound effect'' that goes with the scrolling text in their speech bubbles.
** The ''[[Mario and Luigi]]'' trilogy shares this love for playing with the speech bubbles.
* In ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]'', the malkavian font is like cut out letters from a paper.
* ''[[Video Game]]/Banjo-Kazooie'' and ''[[Conkers Bad Fur Day (Video Game)|Conkers Bad Fur Day]]'' have them throughout each cutscene.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'', every character has them throughout the game, even with the scrolling text in them.
 
Line 124:
* In ''[[Exterminatus Now]]'', the Dark Gods have different colored speech bubbles and fonts, and the main character's superior's speech bubble is black with white text. He himself is nearly always in shadow. The writer pointed this out in the comments for the comic.
* [http://xawu.thecomicseries.com/comics/2 Xawu] has light pink-ish Boxes with black text for Hori, Black with white text bubbles for the bartender, green for Rikard, Purple for Faren, blue for the Pufkash, pink with no border for the princess, and normal ones for Tyrus and unimportant characters. Most also have their own font.
* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court (Webcomic)|Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' uses a different color balloon for each character; the differences are usually subtle. When Shadow2 copies another character's voice, this is indicated by his balloon's color. One character's bodily possession is indicated by overlapping balloons.
** Initially even minor character got their own bubble colors, but this was later dropped; in later chapters, only the major characters get colored speech bubbles. Most minor characters have even lost the bubble colors they once had (e.g. Paz, whose bubbles used to be brown, but now are a generic white).
* Similarly, ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' uses different colors for different characters, or at least tries to. Many characters and many crossovers have lead to a few cases where multiple characters in a strip speak with the same (or very similar) colors.
* Richard from ''[[Looking for Group]]'' falls under this proposed trope.
* ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]]'' uses numerous variations in the shape or color of the Speech Bubbles for specific characters:
** Undeads uses black speech bubbles with white text. When Xykon becomes a lich in ''Start of Darkness'' and his speech bubble changes to the undead format, he comments on his dramatic, [[Voice of the Legion|echoey voice]].
** Diverse colored speech bubbles for outsiders such as celestials, infernals, and ghosts. Infernals usually have black speech bubbles with colored text inside (lampshaded with Qarr the Imp, who is recognized by his red-on-black speech bubble). Celestials have brightly colored bubbles with black texts. Elementals like Celia have a color related to their plane of origin.
Line 134:
** The shape is sometimes significant too, like with [[Lawful Neutral|modrons]] having rectangular bubbles.
** The arrows pointing to which character is speaking also give indications. They are straight when the character is healthy, but become irregular for a wounded or dying one to represent shaky speech. Minister Malack's are always this way, hinting of a raspy voice.
* ''anti-HEROES'' does the same as ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]]'', and [http://antiheroescomic.com/comic/149 lampshades it].
* ''[[Erfworld]]'' uses one font (Maiandra GD) for [[Up the Real Rabbit Hole|real-world]] characters (including Parson even after he is [[Summon Everyman Hero|summoned]] into Erfworld), and another (Gorilla Milkshake) for Erfworld's native inhabitants.
* ''[[Coga Suro]]'' has the usual convention of robots having square speech balloons. Most of them, anyway. Styx, an evil example, has black speech balloons with white text. For a few chapters, each character had a different font, but this was dropped later.
Line 151:
* ''[[The Last Days of Foxhound]]'' does the inverse. When Decoy Octopus is in disguise, his speech bubble remains white, making it easier for readers to identify him.
** Each character has their own colors of speech bubble, with their own [[Painting the Medium]] moments. When Psycho Mantis is using his powers, his text turns from black to <s>red</s> green. It's when he goes totally nuts that his text turns red. And when one character is possessing another, the possessing spirit's speech bubble is used. This is actually used in the last comic, to reveal that {{spoiler|Big Boss has taken over Ocelot's mind, not Liquid as the games would have you believe}}.
* In ''[[Ozy and Millie (Webcomic)|Ozy and Millie]]'', all the dragons have their own distinctive fonts.
** Lampshaded in [http://ozyandmillie.org/2006/04/10/ozy-and-millie-1632/ the April 10, 2006 strip.]
* Vinci of ''[http://www.vincifruit.com/ Vinci & Arty]'' has a thick Greek accent, which is generally rendered phonetically only when other artists "borrow" him. In his home comic, it's represented by a pseudo-Greek font.
Line 169:
* ''[[Home On The Strange]]'' has one character speak in a different font from the others. [http://www.homeonthestrange.com/view.php?ID=15 There's a good reason for this, which is explained in the sidebar.]
* One strip from ''[[Lick My Jesus]]'' (which is regrettably defunct) had one character agreeing with everything another said. It turned out to be because he didn't understand what the person was saying -- because he didn't speak Papyrus. The rest of the strip was a series of gags which involved treating fonts as if they were languages.
* Most dialog in ''[[The Easy Breather (Webcomic)|The Easy Breather]]'' is set in three standard Apple fonts: Chicago for heroes, Sand for villains and Chalkboard for other characters. In the second story, the "neutral" dialog font was changed from Chalkboard to [http://www.1001fonts.com/font_details.html?font_id=3220 Rehotalko], and [http://www.blambot.com/font_sdb.shtml Self Destruct Button] is used for talking robots.
* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]'', [[Starfish Aliens]] often speak in hexagon-shaped balloons, while robots usually speak in stylized square balloons [[Shout-Out|reminiscent]] of the [[Marvel Comics]] [[Transformers]].
* In ''[[Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic)|Schlock Mercenary]]'', the [[Big Bad]] race of the time had an in-universe [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20020421.html font change] to something more readable as part of the terms of a surrender.
* Miss [http://www.nettserier.no/ascii/2008/05/25/ Delta] (a digital artist from @hens) in ''[[Adventures In ASCII]]'' has half-triangular speech bubbles reflecting her body shape.
* ''[[College Roomies From Hell (Webcomic)|College Roomies Fromfrom Hell]]'''s speech bubbles are mostly in the distinctive "Good Dog" font, but [[Satan]] has his own font, and the cyborgised Brazil speaks in a plainer font to suggest his computer-synthesised monotone.
* In ''[http://www.electric-manga.com/ Kagerou]'', different colors are used to differentiate characters, as well as to show which of Kano's personalities is at the fore. His speech bubbles usually match his [[Kaleidoscope Eyes]].
* One [http://mountaincomics.com/shampoo-week-2-finale/ special Mountain Time episode] puts speech bubbles to a somewhat meta use.
* Although ''[[Something Positive (Webcomic)|Something Positive]]'' mostly uses standard speech bubbles and fonts, [http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp10122009.shtml this strip] deserves special mention for its humorously creative use of bubble colour, heavy outlining and symbols such as storm clouds, teardrops and a [[Death Byby Newbery Medal|dead kitten]] to convey heartbreak.
* ''[[The Way of the Metagamer (Webcomic)|The Way of the Metagamer]]'' started out using Comic Sans for everything. Later on, it switched to Gemelli -- but when characters are under mind control or otherwise possessed, their font changes back to Comic Sans. Additionally, the narrator speaks with floating rectangles instead of bubbles -- whenever a character [[Interactive Narrator|imitates the narrator]], they too use rectangles.
* ''[[Drow TalesDrowtales]]'' uses differently colored speech bubbles for different characters. In one panel, Ariel and Chirinide both yell at Kyonne to leave them, and share one bubble with a gradient between their respective colors.
* ''[[El Goonish Shive (Webcomic)|El Goonish Shive]]'' has mostly normal speech bubbles, but occasionally, an Immortal (or flat out [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]]) get black speech bubbles that get progressively less normal as they get angry and/or emotional. The Goo doesn't even have a speech bubble, subtly implying that the Goo does not speak using vocals, but instead through telepathy of some sort.
** Also, in one strip, where a new character with long hair is introduced, a little bubble naming him shows up with 'gothic' script. He glances over and notices it, [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|physically strikes it with a fist]], and it reverts to normal text. It's in the 'one shot' strips, though, where that's more common.
* ''[http://www.rockpapercynic.com/littleworlds/ Little Worlds]'' features blurry-edged color-coded speech bubbles for each of its characters.
Line 196:
* In ''[[Dreamkeepers]] Prelude'', [http://www.dreamkeeperscomic.com/Prelude.php?pg=124 an arcing speech bubble].
* In ''[[Thistil Mistil Kistil]]'', [http://tmkcomic.depleti.com/comic/ch02-pg20/ Loki is angry. The lettering is not neat, and shows red.]
* In ''[[Sinfest (Webcomic)|Sinfest]]'', [http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4026 using fonts, and no border for Buddha's awakening]
** Squigley's [[Mushroom Samba]] [http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2392 features his "WOW" turning into a bird.]
* In ''[[The Specialists (Webcomic)|The Specialists]]'' [http://thespecialistscomic.com/page-59/ Baron Crossbones speaks in black bubbles with white writing.]
* In ''[[American Barbarian]]'' [http://www.ambarb.com/?p=87 red, white, and blue speech for a moment.]
* In ''[[Blue Yonder]]'', [http://www.blueyondercomic.net/comics/1080254/blue-yonder-prologue-page-14/ one attacke speaks in white writing on sky blue]. All the rest are normal.
* In ''[[My LifeatLife at War]]'' they use the shape of speech bubbles to [http://www.mylifeatwar.com/?p=22 indicate a character's accent].
* In ''[[Level 30 Psychiatry (Webcomic)|Level 30 Psychiatry]]'' translated [[Pokémon-Speak]] is rendered in Blue and Yellow balloons reminisant of the Pokemon logo.
* Naturally, these get used throughout the whole of ''[[Ears for Elves (Webcomic)|Ears for Elves]]''; however, the ways their shape and layout can be used is shown excellently [http://www.earsforelves.com/archives/572 here].