Thought Balloons: EXTINCT???

This topic is more a comic book comment then a gaming one and forgive me if others might of dicussed this previously.

Has anyone noticed in the last 5 or so years the decline of thought balloon use in comics? In the 1960's to the early 1990's ( my superhero comic book reading range ) they were in popular use. And although my reading of comics has declined from my youth I still read many trade paperbacks of marvel , DC and independent ( more of those now then my early career ) comics and found almost no word balloon use.

Possible explanations can be varied: those popular and ground breaking graphic novels that worked without them and influenced future creaters.

Artists doing both chores of writing-art not wanting there art/ panals over cluttered. this was a concern for artists years before anyway. now they could do something about it.

The comic book industry felt they evolved past such old, "silly" notions of storytelling with getting inside the heads of characters and maybe felt they would show thru Action what and who the characters are solely.

I'm not sure any of those 3 reasons are part of it and I want to say this clearly- NOTE: I am not even making a judgement call about this. I have enjoyed new comics without thought balloons - just making an observation.

Still there were even years and years ago narration boxes with the thoughts of heroes being used. Mostly by wolverine, punisher, solo-heroes ect. many more. A kind of 1st person storytelling that was used frequently.
they still use this today. a lot.

Maybe a new sense of improved pacing of story. they dont want to slow the comic down. Remember the older comics of spiderman. You knew how he felt and most others in those old books but the 17 pages took longer to read then 24 page books today- personally I dont mind taking time to read.

I think thought balloons could be missed in a multi-hero team book. All those heros, keeping track of how they felt about eachother or what was going on in there adventures without them being vocal about it.

Some of you when discussing the Ultimate line of books felt that although the quality may be there in the work we were to old (involved with the original universe ) to get into them deeply. Are the new ( or old ) comicbook readers too "old" for thought balloons? Comics in the 90's moved towards image (pun intended ) art rather than story. Is the newwave going to cut out the old puffy pillow balloon?


This could be just my observations of the certain books I read.
But I ask a favor from you comic readers out there. Look at your older comics and then some of the newer stuff and see if there is a change.

I would love to see if someone could narrow down when they noticed a decline in thought balloons.( what years )

IS there still room for thought balloons in comics- realizing it might depend on the book, writer , character and yet ...

Would any of you mind if some comics used thought balloons or are you done with them??

Ajax--

To the best of my knowledge, "Watchmen" popularized the use of nine-panel/page art and the lack of thought baloons in modern comics. It probably wasn't the first such work to do that, but it's certainly the most famous. In fact, I know at the Kubert Institute, they teach "Watchmen" as an example of such a thing.

Personally, I like them, but I prefer text pages even more. If used proberly, they can convey quite a bit of depth to a character, and thus, characterization. But used IMproperly, and you can slide into "cheesedom" real fast.

Hope that answers your question,

Antithesis

I agree. the watchman and also the darkknight returns were the ground breaking graphic novels I was talking about in my topic that started this. Comics still took awhile before the phasing out of thought balloons after Frank Miller and Alan Moore did well without them ( in those works anyway ) They both have used them before.

But why are they going extinct? Will they return?

Ajax--

I have a theory as to why they're becoming more and more out of vogue. Please feel free to disagree.

With both the Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, comics took a turn (for better and for worse--but that's a rant I'll save for later) toward a harder-edged feel, with "realism" being the watchword for the time. The comic book industry is a copycat industry; whatever they see "working" (read: selling copy), they imitate (if you doubt this, take a close look: every company has their own pet Wolverine or Dark Knight-clone). And with those two books getting the press they did, it was impossible for them not to be influential on an industry-wide level. The creative trend they started tended to frown on the "mental soliliquies" (too Shakespearean; not realistic enough) we'd seen before in the past.

I remember Alan Moore once saying (re: thought bubbles), "If I've failed to convey it though dialogue...if the artist's failed to convey it through facial expression, then I've failed as a writer. I shouldn't have to dumb down the book by using them [thought bubbles]. That's talking down to your audienec, and that's something I won't do."

As the comics get more and more "grim and gritty", there becomes less and less room for this convention. That's why they're fading slowly away.

Anyhow, that's one man's theory. It seems to make sense to me.

Antithesis
(who apologizes to Alan Moore if he's misquoted him; that's something I once read in one of his infrequent interviews in Comics Review)

I think one of the reason they have gone the way of the dodo is the fact that it's easier to read when it's simply a writer giving you background information rather than listening to someone speak to themselves, many times about stuff they already know and wouldn't be saying to themselves if it wasn't for the readers benefit.

Just like how in The Ultimate Universe they put a recap page right off the bat (Previously in The Ultimates.....) instead of having the hero spend the first two pages wax poetic about what happened only minutes ago (for him anyway).



DG X(

Marvel > DC

Story pacing is possibly a large part of it. Lots of inner conversations to one's self tends to slow down the pace of a story. In many cases, body language, dialogue, gestures, staging, actions, sequnce, and dialogue should be sufficient to tell most story elements.

Also, how does a character fit 5 minutes of interior monologue in a 30 second action sequence?

Heroes are also becoming less introspective, period. Spider-man of old is (in)famous for his many assorted angsts and the shear amount of text dedicated to cover those angsts (he desperately needed Prozac or something). I must admit that it's nice to see them pare that back some and use fewer, more choice words to convey his inner thoughts and feelings. These days Peter is content to have only 2-3 angsts going at given moment.

There's also one other aspect that might be influencing some comic creators: Hollywood. Internal monologues and thoughts due not translate well to the big screen, so if you have hopes of Hollywood making a movie out of your comic, you'd do well to omit thought bubbles.

I agree with whats being said here and i do have feelings of regret for a past now gone.

but the idea of team books like: avengers, x-men, fantastic 4 used thought balloonswere used very well and they were very important in learning how they felt about other characters.

also they were key in learning about the marvel (or dc ) universe some of the deep history of the universe( in specifics ) a great learning tool. of the past and present. the thought balloons were in effect text of pure information.

one last reason for some (not all) books to have thought balloons.
THE SILVER SURFER. his character is so introspective ( he was anyway ) the old great Stan Lee 1960's surfer comics could go almost an entire comic with no vocal speaking. ( he would "speak to himself in the vaccuum of space- but i treat that as a thought balloon ) some characters ( very few ) are about there thoughts equal with there actions.

but i guess thats when they would use the 1st person narration boxes.

I've written the script for my own comic. It is about 120 frames in length including FX, thought balloons (alot of them because the characters converse via mind link). the only part lacking are the pictures. if i find some one to do the art then i would have a small number printed with a view to sell them, and split the net profits down the middle.

Mean time i might try starting the second run, Which is a huge undertaking when you are wrintting it on you palm pilot as i did with the first one.



Fangs
>>| |-- ::!o --||<<
"Yes it the Game has bugs"
"I like mine squished"
"Bon Appetite!"

I vote for the mainstream return of thought balloons in comics.

All comic creaters dont have to be hip and trendy- MORE THOUGHT BALLOONS for everyone.

I started to go back thru my collection to find out when the death rattle of thought balloons was heard. It was difficult. Not only was this a writer by writer basis but team books would use them( on the average a little longer )
all the way up to 1998+ but solo books, they became rare around 1993. Writers of course is more telling. Alan Moore ignored them as early as the 80's and Peter David in his hulks ( a solo book ) they were rare in 93-94.

Of the 4 main HEROES REBORN comics they were used very sparingly but it seems that writers still had uses for them in team books w/ multiple heroes and solo books they would get into the mind of a main character via the narration box.( a form of thought balloon )

2 QUESTIONS: have any of you seen ( curious ) an old fashion thought balloon in a comic dated 2004 at all?

#2- I believe "some" writers may still want ( to a small degree ) to use thought balloons in certain cases depending on a particular style of story- say a cat and mouse hunt , hero vs villian ( spiderman vs. a proffessional cat burglar ) and reveal more of there specific thoughts in more detail then would allow a facial expression to do. Would current editors allow this to happen considering the " new age " of comic book story telling ( or realism trend ).would they ixnay the idea ? COULD some writers have enough pull to bring the thought balloon back?

That might have been more then 2 ?s

Wow, how did I miss this thread last year?
As near as I can tell without diving into the remains of of my 60s comics, I'd say thought balloons faded out with the end of the 60s and the new wave of "realistic" writers.
DC kept using thought balloons longer. Marvel characters, rather than using thought balloons, simply talked to themselves a lot.. Same effect (telling the reader what the character is thinking/feeling) but Marvel was a lot sillier if you think about it. I kinda wonder if the rest of the Avengers quietly assumed Cap had suffered a lot of mental damage from all those decades floating in a block of ice.

I remember reading some comment from Marv Wolfman dismissing thought balloons. This would be fine, except he had created a character who WAS A MUTE! And we never even got to see his ASL translated! If any character needed thought balloons, Jericho was it!

Thought balloons have been alive & well though the entire Batman/Superman comic series.



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Be Ex/20 to one another!

Interesting. I'm gonna check a copy out. - but I wont buy it.

the 70's still had a lot of thought balloon use , and most of the 80's not counting the now famous graphic novels. because of there impact it seems many tried to emulate these works but slowly.

The 90's is when i really noticed there decline mostly at independent comic companies but the big two held on for a little while.

I think the push towards showing off the ART more than story ( decade ) of the 90's also contributed. Artists used to complain about balloons and narration boxes blocking there art. at IMAGE comics w/ there fredricks of hollywood splash pages ect. they were more then willing to cut out the "clutter"

of course sometimes they would use word or thought balloons placed stratigicaly to cover up (a little ) scantily clad or no clad girls!
DARN IT!

I dunno, Dave. I'm gonna have to disagree w/you about Jericho needing thought balloons. Throughout the Wolfman/Perez run (and what I have of the early 90s run) the writing and art was such that there was a great deal of emotion and intent relayed without internal dialogue on Jericho's part. His lack of thought balloons kept the reader in the dark about Joe just as much as his teamates were. I thought it was good.
Right up until the point where they decided to pursue the crappy Wildebeast/Evil Joe/Trigon story arc.
Yuck.



With great power comes great responsibility in a world that fears and hates you, because criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot.

Jericho was the only Titan whose viewpoint we never got to see or read. We knew he was very successful at getting women to pose nude for his paintings but that was about it. And all we ever saw was the finished paintings, so we have no idea how he "talked" his subjects into working with him.

I just thought it strange that one character should be chosen for near-total distancing from the reader.



Post Edited (02-10-05 14:32)

Jealous, Dave? ;)



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Be Ex/20 to one another!

LMAO!
The Doctor is in, ladies and gentlemen!



With great power comes great responsibility in a world that fears and hates you, because criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot.

BUMP!

I had remembered this topic Ajax started awhile back and had recently read how Brian Bendis was going to bring back actual thought balloons! According to a Wizard magazine anyway.

Anyone see if Marvel is using thought balloons in Avengers yet?

I'M curious does any of the X-MEN titles use thought balloons anymore???

Check out Mighty Avengers #1 if you miss thought balloons