The Elements of Comics Style

Writing is awash in conventions: Start a sentence with a capital letter. End a sentence with a period, question mark, or exclamation point. Don't hyphenate after an adverb that ends in "-ly." And on and on.

All that stuff is my stock-in-trade. So I was delighted to discover (by way of reader Joel Blum, of Paris -- thanks, Joel!) that comic-book letterers have their conventions too: Point the balloon tail at the character's mouth. Use burst balloons only for screaming. Use hollow sound effects when you need impact but have serious space constraints.

If I hadn't read all the way to the end of Nate Piekos's "Comics Grammar and Tradition" page, I would have missed wonderful information like "Old-school telepathy balloons look like a thought balloon except they have breath marks on opposing corners" and "Traditionally, whispered dialogue is indicated by a balloon with a dashed stroke. More recently accepted options are ..." 

An irresistible time-waster.

Comments

I've always been a fan of yours, and now that I see you delve even into comic book punctuation, my admiration has grown further.

Posted by Ron | February 8, 2009 12:42 PM

I quite enjoyed this. One quibble, though, with the lead sentence: "Comic book lettering has some grammatical and aesthetic traditions that are quite unique."

In particular: "quite unique."

There are no degrees of uniqueness. Something is unique it stands apart from all other things, adding qualifiers such as very, quite, somewhat, etc., is ungrammatical.

Posted by Chris Gerrard | February 9, 2009 1:08 PM

Oops. Mistake.

The second sentence, second paragraph should be: "Something unique stands apart from all other things; adding qualifiers such as very, quite, somewhat, etc., is ungrammatical.".

Dang.

Posted by Chris Gerrard | February 9, 2009 1:16 PM

I've seen this criticism before, almost verbatim. But in most cases, the problem is not the use of the qualifier, but the use of the word "unique." Mathematicians can refer to the unique solution to an equation, or there may be exactly one thing that satisfies a set of specific criteria, and "unique" belongs to those cases. But in that lead sentence, the word that doesn't belong isn't "quite," it's "unique," if you are going to cite that narrow definition. When you're comparing something non-specific like "grammatical and aesthetic traditions," you can argue that the word "unique" has no place. But that's a definitional problem, not grammar. "Comic book lettering has some grammatical and aesthetic traditions that are unlike those found in other modes of written communication" would have been just right.

Nevertheless, Random House Unabridged Dictionary does include a definition of "unique" of "not typical; unusual." The usage note says the broader interpretation goes back to the mid-19th century. "The comparison of so-called absolutes in senses that are not absolute is standard in all varieties of speech and writing." Webster's Third New International also includes such a definition. American Heritage says that 80 percent of the usage panel disagrees, but also notes that many many reputable writers qualify the word. They warn that (to paraphrase) "quite unique" may evoke a strong negative response from some readers. And I have no problem with that.

Despite the absence of absolute unanimity on this issue, the people with the strong views assert them as absolute, and renounce qualification, and I suppose that's appropriate.

(Still, I'm always tempted to match the complainer's credentials against those of the linguists who produced the "permissive" dictionaries, for lack of a better way of deciding which view to adopt. What else is there?)

Posted by ===Dan | February 9, 2009 2:05 PM