Talk:Speech balloon

Title
What is the origin of the phrase "communication bubble"? "Speech balloon" and "thought balloon" are the common terms in my experience--if this is a new coinage, I think we would do better to list this topic as "speech balloon." --BTfromLA 05:09, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I know it best as a "speech bubble" but there is also the "thought bubble". As both are forms of communication then this title seems sensible. violet/riga (t) 11:18, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * But the way the page is written, it seems to be mainly about speech bubbles, only mentioning thought bubbles later on. I haven't phrased that particularly well but I think this would fit under the title of "speech bubble" more easily. --Thomas 15:31, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I strongly recommend that "communication bubble" be eliminated--it is not appropriate for an encyclopedia to make up new names for things! The question is not only what to rename it, but whether this needs to be a separate entry at all. It may be that this subject can better be discussed within the comics entry, as an expansion upon the discussion of the formal properties of comics. If it is kept as a separate topic, I propose "speech balloon", because it is the most standard form in writing about comics, although "word balloon" is common and variations with "bubble" are not unknown; all of those should be anticipated and redirected to "speech balloon".  There is certainly no need for a seperate topic for "thought balloon"--it can be included here, or as I said above, this all can fit into comics.--BTfromLA 17:20, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * PS. If this is kept as a separate topic, we'll need to discuss the history of the speech balloon, which is rather inacurrately portrayed in the current draft--here's a start: http://bugpowder.com/andy/e.speechballoons.evolution.html
 * I have this bad habit of making up new words, but I swear I've stopped doing it deliberately. I did this because speech bubbles and thought bubbles are part of the same 'category', such as it is, but using the either of those for the article would leave the other out in the cold. But I admit that 'communication bubble' is hardly satisfactory; if you have a better name, by all means run with it. -Litefantastic 01:33, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for being so agreeable about my proposed change. As you see, I've switched it to "Speech balloon," but I think that ultimately it might make more sense to have one central page that describes the formal conventions of comics: balloons, frames, the gutter, etc. --BTfromLA 02:01, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * The new title doesn't follow the rules of proper capitalization it should be "Speech balloon". Jeltz 15:59, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)
 * Is there a page somewhere that describes the capitalization conventions for Wikipedia entry titles? If the title is treated as the title of an article (this was my assumption), then "Speech Balloon" is correct.  Otherwise, you're right, "balloon" would be lowercase. Please verify what the standard is--if the current version is wrong (it may well be), by all means, correct it.--BTfromLA 16:20, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I found style, and you are correct. I'll make the change.--BTfromLA 16:46, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC) I can't seem to migrate the contents from Speech Balloon to Speech balloon, either with "move" or via cut-and-paste. I've only succeeded in gumming up the forwarding links. Can someone who understands the Wiki setup better than I do please step in and facilitate this change? Thanks. --BTfromLA 16:59, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I guess that what I just did is solving the technical matter. Please let me know if you need further help. olivier 18:28, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks!--BTfromLA 19:23, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Thanks for solving this. And sorry BTfromLA for forgetting to link to the capitalisation policy. Jeltz 22:26, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)

I added a few more bubbles, maybe we should be more uniform with the bubble/balloon usage within this article.

I think "word balloon" should be the title of this article, not only do I find it to be the most commonly used, but that "word" easily includes "speech" and "thought" balloons as definitional subsets. Doesn't having the article be called "speech balloon" make "thought balloon" seem more like an adjunct rather than a subset? Taxonomy! Whee! (I prefer balloons over bubbles, as well.) Rand 19:49, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Redirections
Maybe we need to make some more redirections, both for singular and plural, speech/word/(talk) bubble/balloon/s etc...

Tail Point
I think I created the word "Tail Point" for this page... Is there a more official, more commonly used, less ambiguous term that could be used instead. I am not too pleased by the way it looks... =S

As far as I know, they are called "tails" Rand 19:27, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Text boxes
As far as I am aware these are known as captions. Ok to change? Rand 19:37, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Rand, DO NOT CHANGE! I REPEAT: DO NOT CHANGE!!!

Thought Bubbles in older comics
I had some reprints of old (1940s or thereabouts) Superman comics where thoughts were in a regular speech bubble but the dialog was in parentheses. Was this the way of it at the time and if so, when did it change to the "cloud with circles" that's almost universal now? SamXT (talk) 23:54, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Is this a newspaper thing? Or a British reprint thing, considering your use of the word "bubble"? All of the oldest Superman comics I have read has the dialogue in regular word balloons, as far as I recall. By the way, this is a bit difficult to google, since you'd mostly find discussions on why word balloons have been replaced with captions in modern Anglo-American superhero/ adventure comics. Anyhow, the cloud with circles apparently has been in use as early as 1909. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:58, 28 March 2022 (UTC)