speech bubble meaning example

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Speech bubbles and their meaning in animated videos

Sangeetha - March 3, 2015 - Leave your thoughts.

Animated Video Making , Animated video making tutorial , speeh bubble , video tips

Dialogue delivery:

Shout/scream.

Whisper/Secret

Thought bubbles:

Transmit/broadcast:

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Speech Bubble

What is a speech bubble.

A speech bubble is a shape, like a cloud, balloon or bubble, which contains text representing a character's speech. It can also be called a speech balloon, a word balloon or a dialogue balloon.

What do you write inside a speech bubble?

Inside the bubble, the words that the character says are written.

'He said', 'she said', or 'they said' are not needed, as the tail points to who is speaking.

The text should include punctuation, but inverted commas are not necessary, as the bubble itself shows that the words are speech.

Speech bubble activity ideas

1. Character conversations

Choose two characters from a book you are reading, and encourage children to create a conversation between them, using speech bubbles to record what they say to each other. This could be used to further explore an event that has already happened in the story, or, you could suggest a situation that the characters might face in the future. This activity could be done in pairs, where each child takes on the role of a different character. For older children, it might be more challenging to take on the role of both characters (and perspectives) themselves.

2. Talk to a character!

Give children the opportunity to 'interact' with a character at a specific point in the text. Enourage them to ask questions or offer advice - what would they do in the character's situation, and why? You could give children speech bubbles on post-it notes, which can then be stuck in the appropriate place on the page.

3. Give words to a non-speaking character/animal

Sometimes, there are characters in a story who do not speak. Ask children to infer what they might say if they did speak. Again, children could use speech bubbles on post-it notes, and stick them on the page next to the non-speaking character.

For all of the above suggested activities, you might find this FREE Speech Bubble Template pack useful.

4. Use within cartoon strips

This can be a fun way to get your children to summarise or retell part, or all, of a story. This FREE Cartoon Strips Template is a perfect resource for this activity.

Speech bubbles can also be an effective way of developing children's social communication skills . They could be used to explore how children would, and should, respond in a variety of different social situations, e.g. if a person said this to you, what would you say back?

Our FREE Text Message Template could be used for this type of activity with KS2 children.

Other types of bubble...

Whisper bubble

Used to indicate that a character is talking quietly

Thought bubble

Used to convey what a character is thinking instead of saying

Scream bubble

Used to indicate that a character is shouting or screaming

FREE Speech Bubble Template

FREE Cartoon Strips Template

FREE Text Message Template

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpeechBubbles

Speech Bubbles

"So Deadpool speaks with a yellow outline around his speech balloons? What exactly is that supposed to sound like? I can just imagine a movie studio trying to cast someone for the role of Deadpool: Must be able to speak English clearly with yellow outline around dialogue. Red outline voices need not apply! " — Marvel Year in Review 1993 note  According to Cable , Deadpool has a "gravelly, Demi Moore -like voice" which the coloring of the bubble is meant to represent; also, as the coloring switched to digital, Deadpool's speech bubbles switched to entirely light yellow, although with the same effect. Also, someone eventually did get cast as Deadpool in a movie.

At their most basic, Speech Bubbles are floating text circles (or other shapes ) that characters in Comic Books and Webcomics or other dimensionally-challenged media use to communicate.

But Speech Bubbles aren't only generic circles or places to put words; they're metafictional constructs that can be painted, shaped , and written different ways!

Usually the speech bubbles have the following meanings depending on the shape and color:

• Normal speech bubbles : Normal character speech
• Rectangular speech bubbles with lightning bolt arrow : Mechanical voices
• Superimposed bubbles : Interruption . Different characters can be given different shapes or colors of bubble, making keeping track of who is speaking easier, as well as how they're feeling.
• Speech bubble with inwards arrow : Offscreen character speech. More common in manga than in western media.
• Speech bubbles with dotted lines : Whispering
• Speech bubbles with outward spikes : Screaming and yelling
• Spiky bubbles, often with lightning arrow : Announcements
• Fluffy speech bubbles with circles instead of arrow : Thinking. Also known as thought bubbles.
• Drooping speech bubbles with shadows : Menacing speech
• Slightly wavy speech bubbles : Weak speech
• Black speech bubbles : Some villains and monsters like to use black speech balloons and strange colored text

If any character needs a subtly menacing tone to their speech, then it can be rendered in a black speech balloon with either white or red text (the latter maybe implying more anger). Also, madness can be indicated with mangled text, and foreign languages or accents with exotic fonts.

See Pictorial Speech-Bubble for when a Speech Bubble contains only symbols rather than words, and Rebus Bubble for when this is specifically used like a rebus puzzle. Speech-Bubble Censoring covers strategic placement of speech bubbles to preserve characters' modesty.     open/close all folders 

• The use of Halos in Western religious art was, at least in part, to function as Speech Bubbles, putting the prayers of angels or famous Papal quotations as written text on the Halo itself.
• Most comics use different forms of speech bubble to represent telepathy, internal dialogue, phone calls etc., etc.
• Black Orchid 's balloon texts always have a very faint purple colouring, indicating that while she might appear human, she most certainly doesn't qualify as one.
• In Season 8 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer , Warren speaks with irregular and somewhat-squiggly bubbles and Twilight talks in a different font.
• The Invisibles uses speech bubbles to good effect.
• Several characters in The Sandman (1989) 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. Death is the sanest and most down-to-earth of the Endless and the only one whose Speech Bubbles are completely normal.
• Jamie Madrox's duplicates in X-Factor get slightly different fonts from standard speech bubbles.
• The language of the Goths is represented by a Gothic font, Greeks speak in an angular font resembling the Greek alphabet, and Egyptian speech bubbles contain hieroglyph-style rebuses (even for onomatopoeia). When Obelix repeats a phrase in Egyptian, it looks like a shakily-drawn stick figure.
• Asterix and the Cauldron features a Roman tax gatherer whose rectangular speech bubbles resembles modern tax forms, complete with check boxes.
• In Asterix and the Roman Agent , anyone falling under the discord-sowing powers of Convulvus (the titular agent) gets a speech bubble tinted green. When Obelix's anger subsides, his bubbles become progressively whiter.
• When our heroes complain to the camp cook about the army food in Asterix the Legionary , the cook responds with mocking sweetness, before yelling his head off. While he's being nice, his speech bubbles are filled with smiling suns, flowers, singing birds and music notes.
• In Asterix and Caesar's Gift , when Vitalstatistix and Orthopaedix introduce their respective wives, Impedimenta and Angina, to each other, the wives say "Pleased to meet you" to each other in irregularly-shaped bubbles with icicles and snow dripping off them.
• Nearly every important character in Watchmen has either a different color/style speech bubble, or a different font. Sometimes both.
• Martian Manhunter is usually depicted with a wavy tail to his bubbles, and rarely a wobbly edge to the circle, though what exactly that represents is uncertain.
• The Vision traditionally spoke with a square bubble to indicate a cold, robotic voice. In recent years, they have been redesigned to be round, with points cut into the top, bottom, and both sides. They're also used for all synthezoids, like his daughter.
• Thor's font is used for any Asgardian character; even his cyborg clone Ragnarok, and Beta Ray Bill , an alien who uses a copy of his powers, use it.
• This style of speech bubble is used with different colorations for anyone wearing similar armor.
• Ultron has been given rectangular shaped bubbles a lot in more modern times, and Jocasta, one of his creations and a mainstay of the Mighty Avengers lineup, speaks with a font that seems like Comic Sans/Arial as opposed to normal lettering.
• In Great Lakes Avengers Deathurge speaks with all black Speech Bubbles, as does Doorman after he takes up Deathurge's mantle. And actually it's a generally kept convention that death-related or demonic characters get black bubbles.
• Super-Skrull speaks with green Speech Bubbles in Annihilation : Super-Skrull .
• Speaking of Annihilation , in the Drax The Destroyer tie in all aliens speaking in their native tongues get weird bubbles plus in the series proper Annihilus gets purple ones, Tenebrous gets black ones, Aegis gets red ones, and The Xandarian Worldmind gets square ones with a yellow border.
• Thanos speaks in rugged speech bubbles with thick black outlines.
• Depending on the writer, various characters have distinctive font and speech bubble styles, including 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 berserk .
• With enough experience the conventions do sometimes double as Interface Spoiler . For example: Black bubble with Asgardian font? Gee... could it be Hela?!
• It's also worth mentioning that in the early stories, before Humans and Elves learned to understand each other's languages, human language (which sounded ugly to the elves) was represented by rough, angular speech bubbles instead of the neatly rounded speech bubbles normally used when the elves were speaking.
• In PS238 , aspiring supervillain and 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 caroling ape- beans , he starts singing show tunes.
• 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 a Jar has brown square bubbles. Everyone has a jagged outline over a radio and a dotted one when they're whispering.
• Transformers: Generation 2 introduced computer-generated text bubbles courtesy of Richard Starkings and Comicraft, giving the Autobots and Decepticons very distinct fonts, and colored panels along the left side of the bubbles corresponding with the characters' colors. Autobots had square panels and a clean-looking font, while Decepticons had triangles and a harsher, more angular font. The Dinobots, being rougher than the regular Autobots, had trapezoidal panels (with the occasional triangle) but otherwise used the Autobot font.
• Subsequent series from other publishers have experimented with different styles with different effects, such as Megatron in Dreamwave's third volume speaking in black speech bubbles with white text. Most recently, the IDW books tended to just use standard speech bubbles. Starting from around issue 14 of The Transformers: Robots in Disguise , Combiners get uniquely coloured speech bubbles based on the subject's own colour-scheme (so Devestator gets green bubbles with purple font). After Dark Cybertron , Bludgeon starts speaking in black bubbles with white text, a trait shared by Onyx Prime . Centurion, from Revolutionaries , speaks with the squared speech bubbles of Furman's era (matching the bubbles from the series he was "introduced" in, Hearts of Steel ).
• 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.
• Normal humans as well as the titular character of Hellboy have white speech bubbles with standard comic book font and short trails. Demons and 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 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 an inventor as well as terribly scatterbrained, it probably represents that his mind's elsewhere while he's talking.
• 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 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.
• 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, à la Discworld .
• Since an assassination attempt in a hacked virtual reality simulation, Ramone Dexter has become aware of his own thought bubbles.
• Norby : The backgrounds of the bubbles in this series switch between white and yellow to help them stand out against the background, which also tends to switch between those two colours (other colours, too, but predominantly white and yellow).
• Black Hammer has distinctive speech bubbles for several of the characters. Colonel Weird's speech bubbles have a wavy border and light grey text to reflect that he's physically and mentally not all there. Talky-Walky has grey speech bubbles with a square border and bolded, blocky text to reflect her robotic nature. And Anti-God has black speech bubbles with a red border and text to emphasize his evilness. Everyone else uses normal speech bubbles.
• Hound : Morrigan's lines of dialogue are rendered in mixed case with a unique font.
• This has been in the 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.
• 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 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.
• Manfred Schmidt, author of German comic 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".
• On Calvin and Hobbes , The Bully Moe has crudely-written text in lowercase letters for his bubbles to indicate how dumb he is. When aliens or robots appear, their bubbles are rectangular and have electronic fonts.
• The 1925 silent film The Unholy Three has a rare use of this trope in a live-action film. A con man, who used to be a ventriloquist and is now selling birds at a pet store, is tricking customers into thinking his parrots can talk by throwing his voice. Since this was a silent film, it gets this effect across by having speech bubbles pop up above the various caged parrots saying parrot things like "Pretty Polly".
• The Three Stooges short " I Can Hardly Wait " uses a thought bubble when Curly first starts dreaming, showing his dream inside the thought bubble for a few seconds before going to full screen.
• Discussed in When Harry Met Sally... . Harry is telling Jess about his marital troubles. His wife Helen had said she wants a trial separation. Harry: Then she tells me that somebody in her office is going to South America and she can sub-let his apartment. I can't believe this, and the doorbell rings, 'I can sub-let his apartment', the words are still hanging in the air, you know, like in a balloon attached to a mouth. Jess: Like in the cartoon. Harry: Right. So I go to the door, and there were moving men there.
• Funeral Parade of Roses : A deeply weird use of this trope. The Cat Fight between Leda and Eddie has the movie going into silent film mode for a second, with Leda and Eddie hurling insults like "Bitch!" and "Whore!" at each other via speech bubbles spilling out of their mouths.
• Death Note does this, at least in the English manga. The shinigami speak in a different font than the human characters.
• Doraemon : In "A World Without Sound" , the characters' thoughts are displayed in bubbles. Their thoughts are rendered in a different font than their spoken dialogue.
• D.N.Angel uses this trope as well. Dark speaks in a curly fancy kind of font.
• The font in speech bubbles in Fullmetal Alchemist is usually static, but has a tendency to change in certain circumstances. Among the more memorable instances, Roy Mustang's words become elongated and sharp (and punctuated by little "grr"s) in the scene where he threatens to fry Barry the Chopper for putting a hand on Riza Hawkeye.
• The Occult Club president from Mahoraba alternated within each word between hiragana and katakana ; one scanlation represented this by capitalizing eVeRy OtHeR lEtTeR .
• Mokona in Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- (original version) speaks in a rounded font. It takes a while to learn to read it...
• Kengamine Nagi in Deadman Wonderland speaks with a synthesizer, which is illustrated through squarish, angled speech bubbles (as opposed to the round ones that the rest of the cast gets.
• Yotsuba in Yotsuba&! speaks entirely in hiragana, which emphasizes her childishness. This effect, alas, has not been reproduced in any English translation.
• Also, the French official translation renders Chachamaru's (and strangely, Kokone's ) bubbles with a different font to reflect a robotic voice.
• Fruits Basket uses odd-shaped panels and unusual fonts throughout to convey emotions.
• At one point in Sekirei , Kazehana greets Minato upon his returning home and her dialogue appears in heart-shaped speech bubbles... at which point Miya scolds her about this , claiming they're against the rules.
• Ai Yori Aoshi and other manga with romance in the plot often have bubbly speech bubbles to represent nervous babbling. Sometimes the bubbles will have their own Sweat Drop .
• Normal human speech is in plain round speech bubbles, with a tail pointing to the onscreen speaker.
• Narration is in plain rectangular speech bubbles. No tails to imply anyone speaking the text.
• A Radio Voice is indicated for broadcasts and speakers by using double-lined rectangular speech bubble, with little spokes along the edges. No tails.
• Shouting is shown by using an angular speech bubble, as if the speaker drew the bubble while upset and was trying to draw a rectangle. Usually has a tail pointing at the speaker.
• 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.
• Berial in The Tarot Cafe speaks in an elegant Gothic font.
• In what will probably be the only example of characters in prose literature speaking in dialogue balloons, Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf features a world where human beings live side-by-side with cartoon and comics characters. The 'toons communicate via visible dialogue balloons (they even come out of the phone), but can learn to enunciate verbally if they so desire.
• A roundabout example from The Adolescence of P1 , during conversations carried out in text using a dumb terminal connected to a computer, the human side of the conversation is represented by using all lower case text and the titular AI's side is represented by all upper case text.
• All of the dialogue in One Cool Friend is written in line with the rest of the book's text but is wrapped in a speech bubble. Even the blurb on the dust jacket has the lines by Elliot and his father in speech bubbles.
• The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band used speech bubbles in live performances for comic effect, saying things like "Wow! I'm really expressing myself!"
• Janis Joplin : The album cover of Cheap Thrills uses them, because Robert Crumb did the illustration work.
• Frank Zappa : Zappa also used speech bubbles a lot on his album covers and in the gatefold sleeves, most notably Lumpy Gravy , We're Only in It for the Money , Uncle Meat , Cruising with Ruben & the Jets , Weasels Ripped My Flesh and Läther .
• George Clinton also does this often, both as a solo artist, as well on albums by Parliament and Funkadelic.
• Dungeons & Dragons : In the Planescape setting, the phirblas are a strange race of humanoids who communicate by using a variant of telepathy to form words in the air right above them, about ten at a time, appearing in the language of their intended recipient. The nature of said script indicates the phirblas' emotional state, so flowing and elegant letters are used for a formal address, while quick and simple text indicates a casual conversation, messy writing indicates that the phirblas is in a hurry or doesn't wish to converse, and shaky script suggests emotional distress. This trait suggests some connection between the phirblas and the dabus of Sigil, who famously communicate by projecting Rebus Bubbles above their heads, but nothing conclusive has been proven.
• ANNO: Mutationem : The dialogue between characters has the speech bubble appearing as a floating square-shaped box appearing overhead on whoever is speaking.
• Danganronpa : The climax-reasoning segment of trials depict some characters have a speech bubble with random text to fit the situation.
• In 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 II , 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.
• 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: The Thousand-Year Door at least, Boss characters also have a different sound effect that goes with the scrolling text in their speech bubbles.
• The Mario & 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.
• Banjo-Kazooie and Conker's 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.
• Persona 5 : Black and red bubbles with "..." in them appear above NPCs who have things to say, and dialogue now appears as square boxes with triangular attachments pointing to the mouths of the Character Portraits that accompany them.
• Touch Detective has the rare feature of the connector tracking the speaker if they are moving.
• Speech bubbles appear above NPCs or smileys when talking. A smaller bubble with "..." appears above NPCs before initiating a dialogue, or above smileys when moving.
• A black speech bubble appears above a sign that's being read, or above a tile whose metadata is being checked.
• Ava's Demon shows off the characters' various colour schemes in their speech bubbles (fill, lettering, and outlines). This is also used to emphasize altered states like curses and being near death.
• In A Moment of Peace , humans have normal speech bubbles and gods speak in floating, colored, Comic Sans MS text.
• By the Tail : Most of the cast have regular speech bubbles. Echo, meanwhile, speaks in black, dripping letters, while Sugar and Spice speak with with rather oriental-looking letters.
• 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.
• 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 led 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.
• Undead have black speech bubbles with white text. When Xykon becomes a lich in Start of Darkness and his speech bubbles change to the undead format, he comments on his dramatic, echoey voice . Redcloak clarifies that this is because Xykon no longer has a functional larynx, so his voice is magically powered by negative energy.
• Diverse colored speech bubbles for outsiders such as gods, 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 bubbles). Celestials have brightly colored bubbles with black text. Elemental spirits like Celia have a color related to their plane of origin.
• Dragons and half-dragons also have colored speech bubbles linked to their species. Giants too, it seems.
• The shape is sometimes significant too, like with Lawful Neutral Modrons having rectangular bubbles. invoked
• The connectors pointing to which character is speaking also give indications. They are straight when the speaker is healthy, but become irregular for a sick, stunned, drunk, confused, wounded or dying character, to represent shaky speech. Malack's are always this way until he shows his Game Face , hinting of a raspy or hissy voice.
• More classically, bubbles with dotted borders and grey text indicate whispering. Zz'dtri's bubbles always have grey text, since he's The Quiet One and hardly ever raises his voice.
• Early in the comic, mumbling to oneself or aside comments by the characters were texts without bubbles and just a connector. But this became rarer and rarer and has phased out by book 3 — except for the Demon-Roaches, who only ever talk this way .
• Erfworld uses one font (Maiandra GD) for real-world characters (including Parson even after he is 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.
• Comic Book SNAFU uses speech bubbles with different colors or fonts for certain characters, particularly to denote non-human characters like Lancer or Mark Twelve.
• Chainmail Bikini uses a different font for each player (with the same font being used for table talk by the player and in-character statements by that player's character).
• The Wotch uses a black speech-bubble with white letters for Dark Lord Xaos. During a flashback, you see the moment where he discards his old persona as the Lawful Good "Worlock", and dons the spikey darkey helmet of Lawful Evil Lord Xaos; his speech-bubbles reverse their colors from one panel to the next.
• Spider-Man Unlimited (2023) : In the first issue, "Doctor Doom" gets normal speech bubbles until he's revealed as a Doombot robot duplicate. At that point he switches to italics and his speech bubbles acquire jagged tails, emphasising his mechanical nature.
• Bob and George has the Shadowy Author, whose bubbles are normal colored, but just float around without the tail pointing to his mouth. About two years before the end of the comic, his speech balloons suddenly gain a tail; this is our first clue that it's actually George, pretending to be the Shadowy Author .
• Dream Catcher typically uses a standard font for everyone, except early on in the gateworld where they briefly used hard to read cursive text.
• Similarly M9 Girls! used a different font for each major character. For example, the Valley Girl character had a very fancy font, while the villain would get a gothic-looking font. The authors seem to have dropped this in later chapters.
• Agatha and other "Sparks" get a gradual change of font as they draw more and more on the madness that is their source of power... it's not just for decoration, either. With all the cool machines the Sparks can build, it's easy to forget their most insidious power — the ability to draw the easily-impressionable to them, binding their wills, and turning them into "minions". When the font starts getting curly, people start kneeling. Agatha just has a bit of extra punch in that department, thanks to her Mongfish blood.
• When Bangladesh DuPree breaks her jaw and has it wired shut, her speech bubbles become rebuses. Some of Agatha's little clanks "speak" using rebuses as well.
• The Geisterdamen have their own particular fonts, but the same speech bubbles as human characters.
• 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 red 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 Big Boss has taken over Ocelot's mind, not Liquid as the games would have you believe .
• Combo Rangers has speech bubbles Color-Coded for Your Convenience , in accordance to the character's uniform colors. This was useful when it was revealed that a Big Bad was a clone of Power Combo, thanks to their similar speech bubbles.
• The style and fonts used in The Monster & The Girl for each of the major characters. Mayu has blurred edge rounded speech bubbles, Kenrick has extremely ragged edged rectangular speech bubbles.
• Since the characters of 1/0 are actually in a comic strip, they have no audio even to them; their voices are distinguished instead by their fonts. Well, they seem to "hear" their voices, but in the same sense that we do — by seeing the fonts and imagining how they sound. This provokes a bizarre conversation halfway through the strip where they begin arguing about what their voices sound like. Zadok the grass golem is told that only he thinks his voice is a sexy rich baritone instead of a creepy rustling scratching.
• This convention was picked up by Darths & Droids ... and nearly every Campaign Comic in existence.
• And in the recent Deep-Immersion Gaming portions of The Wotch .
• The B-Side Comics from Applegeeks use a similar system: conversations between the artist and writer have the artist speak normally through his avatar and the writer using only square speech balloons while remaining offscreen, almost as a Narrator.
• David Hopkins' Jack uses a very distinctive style of speech bubble with notches along the border for any dialogue spoken by the Sins in the strip and a second distinctive style for those characters who are/were Fallen angels, although the latter is rarely seen. Also, Candy and Ryan Dewalt, the pair behind Vinci and Arty , did a story arc for Jack (with full approval from David Hopkins) and brought their talent for character-specific fonts to Jack .
• 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.
• In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! , Starfish Aliens often speak in hexagon-shaped balloons, while robots usually speak in stylized square balloons reminiscent of the Marvel Comics Transformers .
• College Roomies from 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 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 eyes .
• 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 imitates the narrator , they too use rectangles.
• Drowtales 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.
• The comic has mostly normal speech bubbles, but occasionally, an Immortal (or flat-out 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, 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.
• Yelling is indicated with spiky bubbles.
• Some Abyssals or otherwise death-aspected creatures get white text on a black background.
• Marena has a more animalistic font when in her Deadly Beastman form.
• Nova and the semi-alchemicals have rectangular bubbles, with rounded corners.
• Unnatural Mental Influence is often indicated by the text having a color.
• The Unspeakable's speech bubbles use the Caslon font, as opposed to a "normal" comic font for other characters.
• Also, when Zalgo comes (and goes) in one of the strips, his speech bubbles are oddly-colored and covered in swirly lines.
• Kevin & Kell has started altering its bubbles; once converstations start showing up in 'feline', the bubbles grow cat ears and whiskers.
• Game Destroyers does things a little differently than most other web comics. Unlike other comics, there are no dialogue arrows on the speech bubbles in this comic. Instead, each character has a unique font, text color, and background color. Some characters who know telepathy speak in a rounded edge rectangle instead, whenever the author remembers that, anyway.
• In Level 30 Psychiatry translated Pokémon Speak is rendered in Blue and Yellow balloons reminisant of the Pokemon logo.
• In the xkcd " Time " animation, the Beanie People leader's speech to the protagonists is obfuscated in various ways (words written over each other, gray haze partially blocking the text) to represent the barely-bridged language barrier.
• In Digger , many characters haver unusual speech bubbles, particularly those that live underground. The Cold Servants speak in white-on-black text, and each word is in a different segment of speech bubble. Sweetgrass Voice has white-on-black words in his/its speech. Shadow Child also speaks in white-on-black, but in normal font and speech bubbles. The Statue of Ganesh always has straight edges around His words. The Skin Lizards speak in a different font than most characters.
• General Protection Fault uses a different font for alien speech. Beings from between the dimensions have an extra outline around their speech bubbles - when the webcomic was in color, the ring was red.
• In Funny Farm human characters speak in a handwriting font, while PC, ASCII, Tor the Calculate and other machines have a capitalized sans serif font.
• In one panel where Nintendo is drawn in CD-i Zelda style , she speaks in Comic Sans as opposed to the regular font.
• When a character is speaking from offscreen, their head will show up right next to/partially inside their speech bubble.
• Different fonts are used in Leif & Thorn to represent people speaking different languages. The speech bubbles of vampires are outlined in red.
• In Rusty and Co. , Malevolus speaks in black-letter font on scroll-shaped bubbles. His speech bubbles turn normal once, precisely because he's making an effort to disguise his voice.
• Splashmaster has white text on navy blue bubbles, with wavy tails. They also have water dripping off them, and his text is rendered in ALL CAPS to denote his Simpleton Voice .
• Noisemaster 's bubbles are neon with the colors changing every page. Each bubble has a "shadow" the same color as the text. When not playing up his raver persona, the bubbles use darker colors.
• His partner, Mutemaster , speaks in white-on-gray cloud-shaped bubbles. Mutemaster's magic power also removes the text from other characters' speech bubbles.
• Rosemaster speaks in white-on-green bubbles with vine-like appendages. The first letter of every bubble is also written in a fancier style, denoting her elegance. When angry, the bubbles become red and the vines have thorns. When she's empowered by a magical artifact, her bubbles are white-on-black with a pink outline, and the fancy lettering becomes fancier.
• Quakemaster speaks in blocky pitch-black charcoal bubbles with orange text. His text is also in ALL CAPS, though like Rosemaster, the first letter of every bubble is larger than the rest.
• Glitchmaster speaks entirely in EarthBound -styled text boxes, with each statement preceded by a bullet. When angered, her boxes become glitchy and misshapen and use a pixellated all-caps font.
• The final, unnamed Master speaks in dark blue bubbles with a fuzzy outline and its text uses a different typeface for every letter that aren't aligned with each other, giving off a very erratic feel.
• Fillbert : Most speech bubbles are black text on a white background. Fabian's speech bubbles are white text on a black background; he chose this because the default was too bright for him. Black text on yellow rectangles are a character .
• In Sleepless Domain Magical Girls have their speech bubble outline and fonts colored their main color, while civilians have the traditional black. Meanwhile, The Purple One has the inverse, the balloon itself is purple while the outline and the font are white. This mostly holds over when she fuses with Tessa, with the exception of when she poses as Tessa, in which it's the same as the normal magical girls to blend in.
• Pixie Trix Comix : When Zadie is introduced to Marie and is jealous over her closeness with Dante and Gwynn, there are icicles hanging from her speech bubble when she says, "Charmed."
• The Owl House : In the episode "Lost in Language", when Luz opens a graphic novel during the Wailing Star's influences, speech bubbles appear above Luz, Edric, and Emira's heads when they talk.
• Many cartoons of the silent era , such as Felix the Cat , would use Speech Bubbles as opposed to the word cards usually seen in live-action silent films. Lampshaded by Walt Disney in his first color television show, when he goes over how cartoons acted prior to the dawn of sound. Walt: And as for sound... Well, if a character had something to say, he said it like this. [ he notices a bubble with what he just said written in it, which he pops with a baton ]
• The Belgian cartoon short series Kabouter Wesley does show speech bubbles when the characters are talking. While this is mostly due to the cartoons being virtually unaltered adaptations of the comics they are based on, some of the series's absurd jokes involve characters directly referring to spelling mistakes in another character's speech balloon, so it is quite essential for the text to show up to make these jokes work.
• Thought bubbles are often used on The Simpsons to show what a character is thinking.
• In the Muppet Babies (1984) episode where the babies make their own newspaper, Fozzie makes a comic strip and points out the speech bubbles when they appear (starting with one that says "Booooo!" after his first joke). The bubbles eventually start hurting him when he runs into the pointers, and eventually crowd him out.
• In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Sleepy Time", dreams are shown as thought bubbles, which SpongeBob's dream self is able to jump into and invade other's dreams .

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Nothing happened....

When Luz opens a graphic novel during the Wailing Star's influences, speech bubbles appear above Luz, Edric, and Emira's heads when they talk.

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Definition of speech bubble noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

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Social Thinking Articles

Teaching Through Thought Bubbles and Speech Bubbles

Michelle garcia winner, ma, ccc-slp and pamela crooke, phd, ccc-slp.

Updated: August, 2021 © 2021 Think Social Publishing, Inc.

Over the years, we have been surprised to hear parents or professionals report that their student is “too smart” or is too sophisticated for visual strategies! Personally, we use visual strategies to get through every single day: wall and computer calendars, Post-it® notes or appointment books, digital apps, flipcharts at meetings, whiteboard planning charts, digital mind maps, etc. These are all visual tools to help us connect ideas, see the big picture, and keep our tasks, our engagements, and ourselves organized!

Like many other professionals, we have found great benefit using comic strip conversation (Carol Gray’s Comic Strip Conversations, 1991) to draw stick figures with thought bubbles and speech bubbles to teach abstract ideas in a concrete way. Taking this concept into teaching sessions where individuals use visuals to represent their thoughts and words can be very powerful.

We have personally found that thought and speech bubbles can be critical for some learners to make the process of how we interpret what we say to each other clear. Bubbles can be used both proactively, by teaching about the future impact of their words, and reactively by teaching about what was said, why it was said, and how it was interpreted.

Thought and Speech Bubbles for Teaching Social Concepts

Thought bubbles and speech bubbles have endless uses, especially when discussing how what we do and say impacts one another in the moment. Many individuals with social learning differences and/or challenges report difficulties tracking conversations or discussions in real time. The reality is that conversations are not concrete; the words are spoken, and then poof, they’re gone! These same individuals also report needing help thinking about what others around them are thinking and feeling.

Since these tools are physical manipulatives, they can easily be used in the teaching moment without interrupting the flow by having to stop and draw out the situation (context) or the stick figures to represent the people involved. They’re already together in the situation! This means we can shift focus to how people are relating to each other based on what each is thinking and possibly saying in that situation. This is so helpful when you’re teaching a group of students or when in an individual teaching session. The bubbles are a concrete way to show what you do or say has an impact on their thoughts and feelings and vice versa. It’s an effective on-the-spot visual tool that makes intangible concepts more concrete.

We routinely use the thought bubbles to help individuals learn about thoughts; the thoughts we have about ourselves and the thoughts we may have based on what we think about others. This tool can build more self-awareness into the metacognitive process. It can also support carrying the lesson one step further: how we adapt our social skills based on our thoughts as well as the thoughts others have about what we do or say or the situation.

Speech bubbles can also be very helpful in teaching problem solving. They can be used to illustrate what someone might say in response to what you have said to them. These can also be used reactively to explore why one person became so upset with another person based on what was said.

Here are a few of the countless ways I have used thought and speech bubbles with students (and adults) beyond introducing the very basics. The first lesson is for those working on building self-awareness, and the second and third lessons are for students who already have a level of self and other awareness but may not understand how what we say and do affects one another’s thoughts and feelings .

Lesson 1. Holding a Thought Inside Your Head

In this lesson we teach a student how to hold a thought inside their head without saying it out loud.

Tools needed: Two thought bubbles and two speech bubbles. While you might be able to purchase dry-erase thought bubbles online, you can also make your own:

• Download the free Thought and Speech bubble
• Print it and cut it out
• Laminate with a laminating machine or cover with clear tape
• Attach to a popsicle stick, straw, chopstick, or pencil with tape

People involved: The student and an adult (teacher or parent)

Dilemma: The student is learning about secrets and is learning to keep a secret (e.g., a surprise birthday party for someone). At this stage of learning the student is still unable to keep the surprise and tends to tell others without understanding the concept.

• Introduce the concept: describe what a secret is.

“A secret means we know something that we are not supposed to tell other people. Basically, it is a thought we hold in our head.”

• Give them a pencil and tell them you (the adult) are going to close your eyes and ask them to hide the object in the room where it can’t be seen.
• Tell them to keep their hiding place in their own mind (own thoughts) and not tell you where it is!
• Once hidden, the adult continues to encourage them to keep the thought their own brain and not say it out loud.
• Then, you should take out your thought bubble and explain that you have no idea in your thought bubble about where the pencil is hidden because you didn’t see where it was hidden. Make sure to say that you also did not hear anyone talk about it since the student is not telling you because that is the point of the game.
• Keep mentioning they are doing a really good job keeping the secret.

The reality is that many will find this very difficult! They will immediately tell you where it is hidden (“I am keeping a secret! I hid the pencil in the drawer!).

• When this happens, ask them to write where the pencil is hidden on their own thought bubble (“the pencil is in the drawer”).
• They should also write on the speech bubble “the pencil is in the drawer.”
• Have them hold the thought bubble by their head and the speech bubble by their mouth and say, “The pencil is in the drawer.”
• Use a mirror or, if your site allows digital images to be taken and you have permission, take a picture of the student to show that when they know where something is, they are having a thought and that the speech bubble is showing how they said the thought aloud.
• When they look at the picture of the two bubbles, explain that the bubbles help us to see what they were thinking and then what they said.
• At this point, explain that if people say what they are thinking, then it is not a secret. That’s just telling people what you know.
• Next, you should write what you learned about the pencil on your thought bubble “the pencil is in the drawer” and hold your thought bubble above your head. Tell them, “Your secret isn’t really a secret because I know where the pencil is hidden!” You can also write on your speech bubble, “the pencil is in the drawer” while saying it aloud.
• You then need to go find the pencil.
• Explain that there are times to keep our thoughts in our head, like when we are in class and other students get distracted if we say everything we are thinking. It makes other people feel calm when others around them keep their thoughts in their head, so they can focus on what they are doing! Teachers like it too when students keep their thoughts in their heads during teaching time, unless they are called on in class to answer a question or offer their thoughts.
• Work with the student to help them learn that they can take control of their own thoughts by learning to keep them in their brain.

To teach this, ask the student to close their eyes tight. Hide the pencil somewhere else in the room, then write on your thought bubble where the pencil is hidden (without letting the student see what is written). Turn the thought bubble around backwards so all the student can see is the backside of the thought bubble (which is blank).

• Ask them to open their eyes, then say, “I hid the pencil. I know where I hid it and I am keeping the thought to myself—it’s a secret for now. I wrote it on my thought bubble, but you can’t see my thoughts!”
• Have them talk through why they can’t see your thoughts (because only the back side of the thought bubble is showing and it’s blank).
• Explain you are doing a good job holding your thought in your head. Show that your speech bubble is blank too.
• Then ask, “Would you like to know where the pencil is hidden?” Most will say yes.
• Have them write their thought (“I wonder where the pencil is?) on their thought bubble and also on their speech bubble. Once they communicate this, tell them where you hid it.
• Ask you to close your eyes
• Hide the pencil
• Write the hiding place on the thought bubble
• Turn the thought bubble so you can’t see what is written
• Tell you to open your eyes
• Make sure to let them know they are doing a good job figuring this out but telling them exactly what they did well, “Wow, you did it! You kept your thought in your brain! I don’t know where you hid the pencil! Great job keeping a secret!”

I’ve found that this simple physical act of having students turn their thought bubble from front to back helps them get a better idea of how they can have a thought but not share it and keep it to themselves. The use of the thought bubble helps them concretely get the idea of holding the thought in their head, and the physical manipulation of the tool seems to help this concept come alive.

• Use a mirror or take another digital picture of the student’s thought bubble turned backwards and their blank speech bubble. Point out that you can’t see their thought and that nothing is on their speech bubble. This means the student is learning to keep their thoughts in their head!

Reviewing the digital picture can help a student visually put the pieces together so the teaching makes sense. They can concretely see that keeping a thought private involves 1) having a thought (written on the thought bubble), 2) learning that others can’t see their thoughts (because the thought bubble is turned backwards) and 3) not saying their thought aloud (the speech bubble is blank).

• You will likely need to adapt the above and practice this lesson repeatedly to help the very literal, socially unaware students how know what to express through their language and what should stay in their thoughts.

Important note: Please make sure to discuss that some thoughts and secrets are important to keep in their brains (surprise parties, mean words about other’s appearance, sharing their thoughts during teaching time or when others are talking) but there are other secrets that they should never keep in their heads (someone hurting them or others, people touching them or others, etc.). If you believe the student may struggle to understand this concept, then slow down and develop other activities to teach good secrets vs. not good secrets.

Lesson 2. How Our Words Affect Another Person’s Thinking

We all have moments when we say something that makes another person feel uncomfortable. Part of being in a social situation with others is being accountable to how our words and actions may impact what other people think and feel. Keep in mind that if you are working with a student individually, there are two people in the room who have thoughts and feelings.

Tools needed: Two thought bubbles and two speech bubbles , minimum. If you want to involve more students, you’ll need more of the bubbles.

People involved: Two or more students (5th grade or older) to role play a situation. If there are not two students available for the role play, then the teacher and one student can do this together.

Dilemma: Similar to the lesson above, we are teaching that what we say or do can affect how someone else thinks and feels. In this lesson we are teaching this concept more deeply.

• Encourage your students to hold their thought bubbles above their heads. Talk about how we all have thoughts about each other and it’s common for us to have momentary thoughts about another person in the room. Those thoughts can be uncomfortable or comfortable or neutral, for example.
• Begin by having each student in the group think a positive thought about another member of the group.
• To introduce them to the thought bubbles and speech bubbles, have one kid at a time write their pro-social thought on the thought bubble and write down on the speech bubble how they would describe this thought to the other person.
• Then have this student tell another student the pro-social thought.
• Once the other student hears/receives the pro-social thought, then have that student write down, on their own thought bubble, how this comment makes them feel. Then also write down on the speech bubble what the student may say back to the original student about how these comments made them feel.
• Discuss with students how people tend to feel better and react more positively when they hear positive comments versus negative comments that make people feel not as good.
• Have each student in the room experience saying a pro-social comment to another student and then exploring each student’s reaction to this type of comment. Talk about how we all have thoughts and when we say them aloud, the words can affect others positively or negatively.
• Talk about the fact that people also may have negative thoughts but when those are directly stated, it makes them feel bad.
• Give personal examples of how negative comments have made you think and feel. Define that “negative comments are those that might make the listener feel more negatively about themselves or others.”
• Explain that it's okay to have negative thoughts about other people, as long as we know that most of the time these thoughts need to stay in our brain and not said out loud.
• Have the students each write out something negative they have thought about another person (any person they can think of) on their thought bubbles. Have them keep their speech bubble blank.
• Explain how having the thought does not negatively impact how that other person thinks and feels because it’s not been shared.
• Discuss what happens when people think a negative thought about one person and they share that thought with someone else. Discuss a scenario when they don’t tell the negative thought to the person, but they do tell someone else the negative thought (This is called gossiping or “trash talking” and “talking behind someone’s back.”). Discuss: What if a person tells others about your negative thought? Have the group talk about this type of negative sharing and how it might make the person being talked about think and feel if they found out. Explore with your group how they would feel if this happened to them.
• Next explore the scenario where a person thinks a negative thought about a person and tells it to that person. How will that affect the person who hears this negative information? How will this person think about the person who said it? How will the person likely react? Use the thought and speech bubbles to have students write out this information and hold their thought bubbles over their heads and their speech bubbles next to their mouths.
• Explore reactions. What if the student who was on the receiving end of the negative comment now responds by telling the other person that he’s a “jerk” or the person tells other people how bad he was treated and by whom?
• How does this type of situation end up? Do people build friendships from doing this or is this behavior what makes people upset? What if both people continue to say negative things? How can the situation escalate to even worse behavior?

Work with your students on strategies to help them realize that they have to keep control of the thoughts in their brain and be really careful about what they say. One strategy to teach is that in situations like this, we need to use what we call a “brain thought-to-talk filter.” Explain that we use our brain filters when we have less than positive thoughts and/or feelings about another person. We use a brain filter to make sure we don't say out loud what we are thinking in our brains.

• A filter traps things that you don’t want to flow through. For instance, a coffee filter traps coffee grounds so people can enjoy coffee without it being ruined with bits of crushed up coffee beans in the cup. In a similar way, our brain filter traps the thoughts we don’t want to allow through to our mouth to say out loud.
• If any student expresses a negative thought to someone else in the room, stop and re-explore the need to use the thought-to-talk filter. Have the student or adult who received the negative comment write down how the negative messages made him think and feel.
• Give more attention to the student who was hurt by the message than to the person who said it. Explore how the student who was hurt probably wants to say something non-complimentary back. Explore how this can just lead to more and more negative thinking (and talking) on everyone’s part.
• If you are familiar with Social Behavior Mapping , you can also connect the strategy of using a thought-to-talk brain filter to what we teach in the Social Behavior Mapping process.
• Continue to teach the cause and effect of brain filtering with how it makes others think and feel as a constant underlying lesson when teaching Social Thinking .

Lesson 3. Others Have Thoughts Even When We’re Not Talking to One Another!

This lesson helps students better understand that even when they are silent, people notice one another and have thoughts!

Tools needed: Two thought bubbles and two speech bubbles (for a two-person group). Additional bubbles needed if more students are involved.

People needed: Two or more students plus a teacher.

Dilemma: Many of our quieter students think that if they’re not talking (or no one is talking), people around them aren’t having any thoughts. Sometimes people have reactions because the students aren’t participating or contributing during a social encounter.

• Select two students to role play a situation where they are spending some time together.
• Student 1 stays silent, their speech bubble remains blank.
• Student 2 isn’t talking either, but notices that Student 1 doesn’t say anything and begins to have confused or uncomfortable thoughts about why Student 1 doesn’t talk.
• “Student 1 must not like it here. Never ever talks.”
• “Student 1 must not like me.”
• “That person seems nice enough; I just don’t know what to say!”
• “What should I say? Why does this seem so easy for everyone else!”
• Put both students’ speech bubbles on the table for each to see so they realize that no one is saying anything.
• Put both thought bubbles on the table and help students notice that each silent person is having a lot of thoughts, even though no one is talking.
• Notice that Student 2 has uncomfortable thoughts about the situation or about what Student 1 was doing or saying (or not saying).
• Encourage Student 1 to say something as simple as “hi” to demonstrate to Student 2 that they are at least thought of as friendly.

NOTE to adults: Keep talking about this idea with your students to help them understand that being silent doesn’t mean others won’t notice your presence or have no thoughts about what you do or say. From there, you can begin to explore their social goals . What type of thoughts do you want others to have? How can you communicate with others in a manner that creates these thoughts?

As your students become more conscious of the thoughts and reactions they have based on what others do or say, make sure to teach from their perspective first before teaching about what others think about their actions or words. Then, you can take the teaching to a deeper level.

• How do you push yourself to use strategies you’ve learned in situations like this?
• How can we create a more positive inner coach that can encourage you to push through the anxiety and work on relating to others even when you’re feeling stress?

Often you will find that at the heart of a pervasively silent student is a lot of anxiety —often social anxiety .

Involve Students in the Planning and Goal Setting!

Involving students in creating lessons can go a long way toward them learning information relevant to them! Make sure to ask about their own social goals and work to craft lessons to help them meet those goals.

Give students the chance to be the teacher. Offer the thought and speech bubbles to students and ask them to decide how to use them in the session. Have them discuss why having visuals could be helpful for students. Ask them to work together in a team to design how to teach you (now the student) about:

• Thoughts and feelings: Do they go together?
• Filtering thoughts before they become speech
• When is it a good time to keep thoughts private?
• When and which thoughts should come out?

We hope you enjoy using (and expanding and modifying) these lessons and the many more lessons you’ll create using these thought and speech bubbles to expand upon what we think and what we say in social situations. The goal of the Social Thinking Methodology is to make implicit concepts more explicit. Thought and speech bubbles are an evidence-based way to help social learners meet their social goals in a way that’s engaging, concrete, and often motivating for everyone involved across different age groups!

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Speech Bubbles meaning

I am developing a toon story to illustrate my company's offerings. May be I'll use a landing page, or just create it on the home page.

I have 3 actors in it, a cab driver, a bpo company owner and me. I am using speech bubbles to connect the problem of cab driver's, bpo company owners to a solution that my actor will speak.

I am using rounded rectangle bubbles for all. Is that ok ? Do the speech bubbles have some specific meaning ? I know rounded direction means thought, straight line direction means talking. I tried to google, I just got a lot of text trying to explain, but no clear guidelines on what type of speech bubble to use when.

Edited, I wonder if I have represented the bubbles correctly ?

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• Unfortunately, this is more of a "sequential art" question than a UX question -- maybe you should ask this over on the Graphic Design SE? –  Raye Keslensky Commented Dec 4, 2012 at 20:33
• 3 It probably would help if your characters were a little more conversational, terse, and not so 'marketing speak'. –  Chris Aplin Commented Aug 22, 2014 at 18:52

3 Answers 3

Depending on how much dialog you need to fit in, you'll probably find it creates a simpler, more streamlined aesthetic to remove the lines around the speech altogether and just have a short line from the character pointing to the speech. It's not clear whether your story will be on the web or not, but this design aesthetic is especially true in web-based applications. I read a lot of webcomics, and most of them just use a line from the character toward the speech to signify who's speaking. Some even omit the lines in most cases, relying upon the proximity of the speech to the character to show who's speaking.

If you have a large amount of narration that you need to distinguish from characters' speech and do decide to include lines around speech, here are some general rules as to what various shapes of bubbles signify:

A cloud with circles leading to it signifies a thought not spoken aloud.

An oval-shaped bubble (or more rarely a rounded rectangular one) signifies speech.

An oval bubble with ovals leading to it is ambiguous as to whether it's thought or spoken and should thus be avoided.

A jagged speech bubble indicates shouting.

A zig-zagging line is common for text coming through a computer or telephone.

For the most part, it's an artform; aside from the few major types that people have already pointed out, as long as it's clear which is which (and you're consistent in doing so), you'll be fine.

If you're getting really clever, though (and you might be), there's a full collection of Comic Book grammar .

Speech bubble (often called speech balloons) types are mostly indicated by the part pointing to the person that they are referring to.

In the image below (from Wikipedia) the bubbles / balloons indicate: speech, thought, shouting.

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Meaning of Speech Bubbles in Comics

Last Updated on July 1, 2024 by Ilka Perea Hernández

The visual tool used to represent the characters’ speech, dialogue, or conversation in the comics is known as a “bubble”. The meaning of speech bubbles in comics will be addressed, emphasizing their proper use and comic grammar.

Table of Contents

Speech Bubbles

What are speech bubbles, different kinds of speech bubble, normal speech, electronic devices, extended speech, some insights, what do you think, cite this post.

One of the most important parts of comics is the character dialogue. It is one of the  features of comics  and it is as valuable as the images themselves. They are a great support for the narrative within the comics.

As part of the visual language of comics, bubbles are small expressions in themselves, with their own meaning. They can communicate in a situation or context. Therefore, it is important to know the meaning of speech bubbles in comics to know how to express emotions in a dialogue, nature, the source of the speech, and sounds, for instance.

Certainly, speech bubbles are usually added after the editing and photography of the images. However, at this point in  the process of making a comic , you must have the text included inside the bubbles. The extension of the text must be set during the scriptwriting process, as well as the type of bubble to be used. Therefore, knowing the meaning of speech bubbles in comics ensures a better choice of each one to correctly communicate the message you want to convey.

Creative Process of Making Comics

There are different kinds of speech bubbles because there are different ways that a character could dialogue or communicate a message in a comic. There are some examples:

The “basic” bubble — which often has an oval shape — is used for normal character speech. The “tail” of the bubble should generally point towards the speaker, particularly towards his mouth or the area that produces the sound.

Vertical bubbles can be used when there is not enough horizontal space.  Therefore, this provides flexibility in distributing the bubbles within the panel.

Most of the time, this kind of bubble has an oval shape. However, it can have different shapes.

To express a thought, an idea, or that one is daydreaming, the bubble with a cloud shape is the right one. Besides, the shape can also be oval, like the basic one. But its tail is formed by a group of circles, or ellipses. For example, there are 2 or 3 circles.

Besides, this bubble serves to communicate what animals, plants, or things cannot say, as they “do not talk”. For example, the meow of a cat or the bark of a dog could be represented by onomatopoeias. However, to express their internal dialogue, you can use the cloud bubble.

Rectangular bubbles without a tail are known as captions. They express what the narrator says in such a way that they support the course of the story. In other words, this space describes, in words, a given situation that would not be attributed to a character. Sometimes they are appreciated as voice-overs. Likewise, they are used for subtitles.

Multi-edged bubbles usually represent screaming or a message out loud, but the screams may have a positive or negative connotation. For example, the character is urging his team to try harder. However, the same bubble can be used to insult or express abuse.

Depending on the connotation of the message, either negative or positive, the text in its content may have variations in style: bold, larger, or different colors, for instance.

On the other hand, this bubble can also vary in shape, depending on the intensity of the emotion to be expressed and the style of the comics.

This is used to represent words or sounds coming from an electronic device such as a television, telephone, radio, or microphone. The tail of the bubble points towards the device, and it looks like lightning. In addition, it can be used for robot and hologram dialogs.

Whispers are presented with a dashed-lined bubble. However, it also represents saying a secret or speaking in a very low voice. Certainly, the shapes can also vary for greater flexibility.

The wavy bubble indicates that the speaker is suffering from physical weakness. Likewise, it indicates that a character is exhausted, semi-unconscious, or about to faint. So, its wavy shape reflects the weakness of the character’s voice.

• If the speech or dialogue is too long or a pause is required, the text is distributed into extended speech bubbles.

Moreover, the extended speech bubble has variations. Dialogues can be interleaving but use a bridge that links the speech bubbles of the same character.

• Speech bubbles represent the characters’ dialogue or thoughts.
• Normal speech is often represented by an oval-shaped bubble.
• To express a thought or an idea, the bubble with a cloud shape is the right one.
• Rectangular bubbles without a tail are known as captions.
• Multi-edged bubbles usually represent screaming or sending a message out loud.
• The bubble, whose tail looks like a flash of lightning, is used to represent words or sounds coming from an electronic device.
• Whispers are presented with a dashed-lined bubble.
• The wavy bubble indicates that the speaker is suffering from physical weakness.

Comics are not just a piece of entertainment for children and teenagers. This massive medium is appreciated and understood by adults as well. Marketing agencies and advertising companies have understood this and have started to use it to attract potential customers.

In conclusion, the narrative power of comics can be exploited in graphic design to communicate ideas interestingly and differently. Learning the meaning of speech bubbles in comics is one of the first steps. If graphic designers want to take advantage of the full potential of comics, it is necessary to understand the concepts and features of comics and their different genres. It is also necessary to follow the process of creating a comic in order to develop a story through this format.

In the comments section, tell me if you already knew these bubbles and their meanings. Do you know other bubbles?

• APA Style: Perea Hernandez, I. (2019, August 15). Meaning of speech bubbles in comics. Retrieved from https://ilkaperea.com/2019/08/15/meaning-of-speech-bubbles-in-comics/
• Chicago Style: Perea Hernandez, Ilka. “Meaning of Speech Bubbles in Comics.” Ilka Perea, August 15, 2019. https://ilkaperea.com/2019/08/15/meaning-of-speech-bubbles-in-comics/ .
• MLA Style: Perea Hernandez, Ilka. “Meaning of Speech Bubbles in Comics.” Ilka Perea, 15 Aug. 2019. Web. https://ilkaperea.com/2019/08/15/meaning-of-speech-bubbles-in-comics/ . Accessed [insert current date].
• Harvard Style: Perea Hernandez, I. 2019. Meaning of Speech Bubbles in Comics. [ONLINE] Available at: https://ilkaperea.com/2019/08/15/meaning-of-speech-bubbles-in-comics/ (Accessed [insert current date]).

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Bibliography

• Acevedo Fernández, J. (2019). Para hacer historietas.  Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
• Labarre, N. (2020). Understanding Genres in Comics (Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels). Editorial Palgrave Pivot.
• McCloud, S. (2006). Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels. William Morrow Paperbacks.
• Stevenson, J. (2020).  How to Draw Manga (Includes Anime, Manga and Chibi) Part 2 Drawing Manga Figures. Editorial Golden Valley Press.

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What are Speech Bubbles?

In comic books and comic strips, speech bubbles are a visual means of conveying words spoken characters. Since the 19th century, when comics first appeared as satirical drawings, they’ve been used in conjunction with drawn characters. These bubbles are easily recognized as purposefully drawn shapes with text next to an illustrated character.

Speech bubbles are contained within the panel and used to convey the dialogue of cartoon characters. They are not to be confused with captions, which are generally reserved for narration rather than dialogue and take the form of squares of text attached above or below the panel. They represent spoken words, whereas thought bubbles represent the thoughts of a character and are distinguished their shape. Thought bubbles are typically cloud-shaped or circular, with an increasingly smaller chain of circles directed at the character in thought, whereas speech bubbles have pointed tails directed at the character speaking.

Speech bubbles come in a variety of sizes and shapes to help the reader understand the tone of the dialogue. Text inside jagged-edged bubbles, for example, could indicate angry speech or shouting. Text inside simple circular or square-shaped balloons usually indicates normal conversation. The shape difference may vary depending on the artist and the comic’s cultural influence. Manga artists, for example, may use them in a different way than American artists.

To keep the illustrated dialogue flowing, the placement of speech bubbles is critical. The tail usually aids in determining who said the words they contain. If a character is off-panel and cannot be seen, the tail may be pointed off-panel or inward toward the bubble itself. The tails of broadcast speech bubbles indicating radio or television dialogue are usually jagged, like lightning bolts.

In comics, speech bubbles are essential for expressing spoken dialogue and anything else that needs to be heard. In order to communicate the correct meaning and avoid confusing the reader, comic strip artists must carefully choose and place them. Their proper use helps bring comic strips and graphic novels to life for their readers, from basic balloons to those expressing emotion, thought, or even action, such as the “Z” speech bubble indicating sleep.

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Speech bubbles are a visual means of conveying words spoken by characters in comic books and comic strips. They have been used in conjunction with drawn characters since comics first began appearing as early satirical drawings in the 19th century. These bubbles are clearly identifiable as intentionally drawn shapes containing text located next to an illustrated character.

Not to be confused with captions, which are generally reserved for narration rather than dialogue and take the form of squares of text attached above or below the panel, speech bubbles are contained within the panel and used to convey the dialogue of cartoon characters. They indicate spoken words, while thought bubbles indicate a character’s thoughts and are differentiated by their shape. Thought bubbles are generally cloud-shaped or circular with an increasingly smaller chain of circles directed at the character in thought, while speech is typically distinguished by pointed tails directed to the speaking character.

There are different types and shapes of speech bubbles used to help convey the tone of the dialogue to the reader. For example, angry speech or shouting may be indicated by text inside jagged-edged bubbles. Normal conversation is usually indicated by text inside simple circular or square-shaped balloons. The difference in shapes may vary with the artist and the cultural influence of the comic. For example, Manga artists may utilize them differently than American artists.

The location of speech bubbles is important to keep the illustrated dialogue flowing. The tail generally helps identify who has spoken the words they contain. It usually points to speaking character, but if a character is off-panel and cannot be seen, the tail may be pointed off panel or may be pointed inward toward the bubble itself. Broadcast speech bubbles indicating radio or television dialogue generally have jagged, lightening-bolt tails.

Speech bubbles are essential for expressing spoken dialogue and anything meant to be audible in comics. Comic strip artists must carefully choose and place them in order to communicate the proper meaning and not to confuse the reader. From basic balloons to those expressing emotion, thought, or even action, such as the "Z" speech bubble indicating sleep, their proper use helps bring comic strips and graphic novels to life for their readers.

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Exploring Speech Bubbles Templates

Explore a variety of speech bubble templates to add flair to your designs.

Speech bubbles are an integral part of visual communication, often used in graphic novels, comics, and web design to represent dialogue or thoughts. They add a dynamic element to the narrative, making it more engaging and interactive. The use of speech bubbles isn’t limited to these areas; they are also used in presentations, educational materials, and marketing collateral. This guide will delve into the world of speech bubbles templates, their uses, and how to create them.

Understanding Speech Bubbles

Speech bubbles, also known as speech balloons, are graphical elements that visually represent communication in comics and graphic novels. They have been used since the early 20th century and have become a staple in the comic book industry. The shape, size, and style of a speech bubble can convey different emotions and tones, making them a versatile tool in visual storytelling.

Speech bubbles are not just for comics. They are also used in other forms of media such as web design, advertising, and educational materials. They can make content more engaging and easier to understand , especially when explaining complex concepts or instructions.

Different Types of Speech Bubbles

There are several types of speech bubbles, each with its unique purpose and design. The most common types include the dialogue bubble, thought bubble, scream bubble, whisper bubble, and caption. The dialogue bubble, which is the most common type, is used to represent spoken words. On the other hand, the thought bubble, often cloud-shaped , is used to represent thoughts or internal monologue .

The scream bubble, with jagged edges, represents shouting or loud speech, while the whisper bubble, usually depicted with a dotted line, represents soft or whispered speech. Lastly, the caption is used to provide narration, setting details, or other non-dialogue information.

Creating Speech Bubbles Templates

Creating speech bubbles templates can be a fun and creative process. It allows you to add a personal touch to your comics, presentations, or marketing materials. There are several ways to create speech bubbles templates, from using graphic design software like Adobe Illustrator to online tools and even coding them in HTML and CSS.

When creating speech bubbles templates, it’s important to consider the content that will go inside the bubble. The shape, size, and style of the bubble should complement the tone and message of the text. For instance, if the text is a loud exclamation, a large bubble with jagged edges would be appropriate.

Using Graphic Design Software

Graphic design software like Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign offer tools and features that make it easy to create speech bubbles. These software programs allow you to draw custom shapes, add text, and apply styles to create unique speech bubbles. They also offer templates that you can use as a starting point.

Creating speech bubbles in graphic design software involves drawing the bubble shape, adding the tail, and inserting the text. You can customize the shape and style of the bubble to match the tone of the text. Once you’re happy with the design, you can save it as a template for future use.

Using Online Tools

There are several online tools that allow you to create speech bubbles quickly and easily. These tools offer pre-designed templates that you can customize with your text and style. Some of these tools include Canva, Piktochart, and Bubblr.

These online tools are user-friendly and don’t require any design skills. You simply choose a template, add your text, and customize the design to suit your needs. Once you’re done, you can download the speech bubble as an image file for use in your projects.

Coding Speech Bubbles in HTML and CSS

If you have some knowledge of HTML and CSS, you can code your own speech bubbles. This gives you complete control over the design and functionality of the bubbles. You can create any shape, size, and style of bubble, and even add interactive elements like hover effects.

Coding speech bubbles involves creating a container for the bubble, adding the text, and styling the bubble and text with CSS. The bubble’s tail is created using the CSS pseudo-elements ::before and ::after. You can then save the code as a template for future use.

Speech bubbles templates are a versatile tool in visual communication. They can be used in a variety of media, from comics and graphic novels to web design and advertising. Creating your own speech bubbles templates can be a fun and creative process, whether you’re using graphic design software, online tools, or coding them in HTML and CSS.

Remember, the key to effective speech bubbles is to match the design with the tone and content of the text. With a bit of creativity and practice, you can create engaging and dynamic speech bubbles that enhance your visual storytelling.

Start Creating Your Own Speech Bubbles Today!

Ready to bring your visual stories to life? With Phraseit, you can easily create professional-looking speech bubbles for your comic strips or other visuals. Whether you’re uploading your own images or choosing from our curated stock photos, our free online speech bubble maker at phraseit.net offers a variety of custom bubbles to personalize and add flair to your projects. Don’t wait any longer—check out our bubble maker and start crafting your unique dialogue-filled scenes now!

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What is the Pointy Part of a Speech Bubble Called?

Given a speech bubble, what is the pointy part from which indicates the origin of the spoken word?

I'm assuming this is the same term for thought bubbles? If not what's the term for the origin of thought bubbles?

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2 Answers 2

According to wikipedia, it's a tail :

... uses a bubble with a pointer, called a tail, directed towards the speaker.

I can't find a definitive source, and Wikiepdia doesn't provide one. But it's used in the sites like this and elsewhere.

A common speech bubble is usually made up of a oval shape, with a tail at the bottom, indicating which person is the speaker.

There doesn't appear to be a distinction among the different versions of speech bubbles, so for a thought bubble, tail is still appropriate.

• Also, Microsoft platforms use the term Callout for the whole shape. –  Yosef Baskin Commented Mar 20, 2017 at 16:21
• 1 Plenty of usage on this page if you want to add a citation: blog.animaker.com/speech-bubbles-meaning-in-animated-videos –  Phil M Jones Commented Jul 4, 2018 at 11:04

it's Notch. Well pronounced as speak bubble notch.

• 1 Welcome! Do you have a reference for that? A dictionary entry, perhaps, or do you know it by personal experience? –  gmauch Commented Jul 4, 2018 at 11:24
• 1 I wouldn't mind giving an upvote or even accepting if you could provide a source. As it stands I've gotten used to calling it a tail. –  Jonathan Mee Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 1:29

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What exactly is a planet? Scientists propose improved definition

July 11, 2024

The proposal refines current definitions that require planets to be round bodies which orbit our sun and have ‘cleared’ their neighbourhoods

Planetary scientists are proposing a new definition for what we can call a planet. If accepted, it would replace the current definition from 2006 that caused an uproar by demoting Pluto to a dwarf planet.

The new definition aims to start a conversation about what we call a planet—and what we don’t. 

The organization that officially names objects in space, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), established the 2006 definition which specifies that to qualify as a planet, a celestial body must orbit our sun. 

“We now know of thousands of ‘planets’ orbiting other stars, but the IAU definition applies only to those in our solar system, which is obviously a big flaw,” said Dr. Jean-Luc Margot, professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and lead author of a paper proposing the refined definition which will be published in the Planetary Science Journal , currently available as preprint . “We propose a new definition that can be applied to celestial bodies that orbit any star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf.”

Dr. Margot will present the proposal at the IAU General Assembly in August, intending to provide clarity to some vague aspects of the current definition including that a planet must be massive enough that gravity has forced it into a spherical shape, and it has cleared away other objects near its orbit around the sun. 

But how spherical must the planet be? And exactly what does ‘cleared away’ mean? Dr. Brett Gladman, professor in the UBC department of physics and astronomy, muses: “The Earth isn’t completely round, so how round does a planet have to be? If you look at a world orbiting another star, with current technology, we can’t measure the shape.” 

“Additionally, Jupiter’s orbit is crossed by comets and asteroids, as is Earth’s. Have those planets not cleared their orbit and thus, aren’t actually planets? We’re drawing a line in the sand by putting some numbers to these definitions, to encourage our community to start the discussion: What exactly is a planet?” 

In the new definition, a planet is a celestial body that:

• orbits one or more stars, brown dwarfs or stellar remnants and
• is more massive than 10 23 kg and
• is less massive than 13 Jupiter masses (2.5 X 10 28 kg)

In the paper, Drs. Margot and Gladman with co-author Tony Yang, a student at Chaparral High School in Temecula, Calif., also ran a mathematical algorithm on the properties of objects in our solar system to see which objects clustered together. The analysis revealed distinct groups of planetary bodies that can be used as a starting point for categorizing planets in general.

For example, if an object has enough gravity to clear a path by accumulating or ejecting smaller objects nearby, it is said to be dynamically dominant. 

“All the planets in our solar system are dynamically dominant, but other objects, including dwarf planets like Pluto and asteroids, are not,” said Dr. Margot. “So this property can be included in the definition of planet.”

The requirement for dynamical dominance provides a lower limit on mass. But potential planets can also be too big to fit the new definition. Some gas giants, for example, are so large that thermonuclear fusion of deuterium occurs, and the object becomes a substar called a brown dwarf and therefore not a planet. This limit has been determined to be the mass of 13 or more Jupiters. 

“Having definitions anchored to the most easily measurable quantity—mass—removes arguments about whether or not a specific object meets the criterion,” said Dr. Gladman. “This is a weakness of the current definition.” 

For instance, the authors argue, the shape requirement is so difficult to implement that it is effectively useless for definitional purposes, even though planets are generally round. The good news is that, in the solar system, celestial bodies larger than 10 21  kg appear to be round. So all bodies that satisfy the proposed lower limit on mass of 10 23  kg are expected to be spherical.

While any official change to the IAU definition of planet is likely a few years away, the authors hope their work encourages more conversation about a planetary definition. 

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What is a metaphor? Check out these examples in songs, literature and more.

No matter if you're in school or well past your days in English class, figures of speech are used every day in our lives. From songs and television shows to conversations and advertisements, we often use words or phrases in creative ways to spark imagery.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" You most definitely can with the help of metaphors.

The figurative language is one of many that helps make comparisons. If you're looking to improve your rhetorical prowess, read on.

What is a metaphor?

A metaphor is a figure of speech used to make a comparison or analogy through phrases and words.

For example, a metaphor can compare one thing – such as an action or object – to another, even though it is not the reality, according to Grammarly. For instance, "someone's heart is broken" or "he was drowning in debt."

A metaphor identifies two things and places them together to symbolize something figuratively. Someone's heart has not actually split in half but it may feel that way since they are upset or angry. In this example, dealing with rough emotions is equated to something being shattered or broken.

Unlike a simile , a metaphor does not use "like" or "as" in order to make the comparison.

What does alliteration mean? Check out these real-world examples in ads, songs and poetry.

Metaphor examples

Metaphors are often used in poetry, literature, songs and everyday speech to make the tone more illustrative or expressive.

Metaphor examples in songs include:

• "Life is a highway."
• "I am titanium." - "Titanium" by David Guetta
• "Baby, you're the end of June." - "Watermelon Sugar" by Harry Styles
• "I'm a diamond, you know I glow up." - "Dynamite" by BTS
• "Summer's a knife." - "Cruel Summer" by Taylor Swift

Other metaphor examples include:

• "All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players." - "As You Like It" by William Shakespeare
• "It is the east, and Juliet is the sun." - "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare
• "She has a heart of stone."
• "Time is money."
• "You are such an angel."

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