Speech balloon (nonfiction)

Hieroglyph for "grain" (see Pefsu problem), which resembles a speech balloon.

Speech balloons (also speech bubbles, dialogue balloons or word balloons) are a graphic convention used most commonly in comics, comic books, and cartoons to allow words (and much less often, pictures) to be understood as representing the speech or thoughts of a given character in the comic.

There is often a formal distinction between the balloon that indicates thoughts and the one that indicates words spoken aloud.

The balloon that conveys subjective thoughts is often referred to as a thought bubble.

In the News

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  Artist-Engineer Don Tasmian harvesting ripe speech balloons from freshly enumerated Diagramaceous soil.

Fiction cross-reference

• Diagramaceous soil
• Don Tasmian

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Cartouche (nonfiction)
• Comics (nonfiction)

External links:

• Speech balloon @ Wikipedia