thought balloons
Illustrated inner monologue
Thought balloons are the cloud-shaped enclosures in comics and cartoons that show what a character is thinking, as opposed to speech balloons, which show what they're saying aloud.
The puffy, cloudlike border and small trailing bubbles leading to the character's head distinguish thoughts from spoken dialogue.
The thought balloon revealed the villain's secret plan while he smiled innocently.
They've become less common in modern comics, where captions or narrative boxes often serve the same purpose.
- mangaJapanese comic medium
- cartooningArt of drawing comics
- comic stripsSerialized newspaper cartoons
- graphic novelBook-length illustrated sequential narrative
- inner monologueUnspoken personal narration
internal dialogue · emotional cues · webcomic · visual metaphor · superheroes · symbolic language · stream of consciousness · storyboards · penciller · comic book · graphic storytelling · mental imagery · webtoon · semiotics · genre conventions · creative expression · narrative pacing · Batman
thought balloonsspeech balloons
Enclosed comic dialogue
dialogue boxes · speech bubbles · word balloons · spoken dialogue · sound effects
thought balloonsshow don't tell
Writing principle favoring demonstration
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