In comic books and animated works, one way to demonstrate that a character is a no-nonsense badass, creepy or just plain pissed is to show them with strands of saliva, phlegm, drool, or some other mucus dangling between their teeth. Popularized by the various Rob Liefeld clones during The Dark Age of Comic Books, but examples predate that period.
This occurs because drooling and oral messiness tends to invoke a Squick response in many people, making phlegmings a convenient visual shortcut for invoking Primal Fear. For instance, it may show anticipation of a good meal (e.g., the heroes/villains) in predator characters. Or, it may be a sign of disease, like rabies.
In comic book images like the one shown, a saliva trail between upper and lower jaws works as a visual shorthand, indicating that the mouth has just now been opened (since such trails would be expected to disappear after a moment). Thus their use helps create a feeling of immediacy, that what you're seeing is a "snapshot" rather than a posed image.
A common trope for characters with More Teeth than the Osmond Family. Contrast with Gonk, the blatant uglification of a character. See also *Drool* Hello, Perverted Drooling and Spit-Trail Kiss for other tropes involving high-viscosity saliva.
Cookie for you if you thought this was a trope about snot-based video game enemies. Or to do with a language spoken in Belgium.
Trope originally identified by the HeroMachine blog.
Examples:
- Naruto: Gaara uses a combination of psycho smile and, when he really loses it, this◊.
- Saiyuki: Whenever Son Goku takes off his tiara-limiter and goes Ax-Crazy, he has this problem.
- My Little Pony Generations: When the shriek-yowls are shown shrieking in anger, the tops and bottom of their beaks are connected by long strings of saliva.
- Norby: In the last panel of chapter twelve in the Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot adaptation, Zi's mouth is watering as she says Jeff and Norby are unwelcome aliens. Combined with Jeff's speculation that the baby's mother would eat him and Norby, the page ends with the implication that the two are about to be snacks.
- Rob Liefeld came up with blood phlegmings once◊.
- Tales of the Jedi: Ubiquitous in any issue illustrated by Dario Carrasco Jr. It's the "sense of immediacy" type; anyone whose teeth aren't clenched is probably displaying this.
- Transformers: Generation 2: Megatron is somehow able to produce these despite being a robot.
- Wolverine: When Wolverine goes into a berserker rage, he often has either this or flying spittle.
- Wonder Woman (1987): Used frequently for the overmuscled villains during Mike Deodato's time as an artist to show that they'd just opened their mouths, especially during Artemis's stint as Wonder Woman.
- In the first Shrek movie, the title character lets out a bloodcurdling roar that shows off just how good the computers were at rendering flying spittle. Several members of the angry mob have slimy faces in the next shot.
- Alien: The xenomorphs often have mucus dripping from their teeth and mouths.
- Batman Returns: The Penguin has a perpetual trickle of an oil-like bile running down his chin.
- The Fly (1986): Brundlefly constantly excretes a sticky white liquid from his mouth, which he uses to dissolve and digest his food.
- The Funhouse: The killer is constantly drooling due to his deformed features.
- Home Sweet Home: Jay drools a lot.
- Mean Machine: Nitro is constantly drooling and spitting to bolster up his loony appearance.
- The Return of the Living Dead: Wen Freddy finally succumbs to the zombie hunger, he starts foaming at the mouth like he's chewing on Alka-Seltzer.
- Tremors: The creators initially avoided this trope, in order to set their movie apart from the dark, dripping world of Alien, but realised upon watching the rushes that the Graboids didn't look real enough without it.
- Venom (2018): True to the comics, the title character often gets these in his fang-filled mouth when the Symbiote takes over Eddie's body. Particularly noticeable when Eddie transforms into Venom for the first time and licks a Mook's face while musing about which bits of him to eat first.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A giant spider demon drools over Buffy in "Selfless".
- Doctor Who: During his big reveal, Rasilon sprays quite a bit while giving a "the Earth Will Fall" speech.
- Game of Thrones: Khal Drogo's Rousing Speech where he declares he will invade the Seven Kingdoms in retaliation for Daenerys' near-assassination is accompanied by a lot of spitting. Given that he is one of the most badass and barbaric characters in the series, it seems in-character for him.
- Red Dwarf. In "Psirens", the eponymous Monster of the Week is a siren that appears to Lister as a Lust Object. As Lister snogs the girl of his adolescent fantasies, the audience is given a Fan Disservice view of what's really happening — Lister smooching a bug-like alien and getting slime all over his face (according to Word of God they used agricultural jelly for inseminating cows).
- The Heromachine blog had a character creation contest based on "The Image Nineties". Lots of contestants gave their entries Phlegmings.
- Many images of Komodo dragons show Phlegmings, as they're quite prone to doing it in real life. And for extra creepy points, their saliva is essentially their venom!
- Mass Effect: Something half-glimpsed in the Prothean Cipher does this, contributing to the general message of species-wide trauma and unimaginable suffering.
- Kevin & Kell: R.L.'s drooling jaws are almost all we ever see of him.
- Kaeloo: In an episode episode where Quack Quack is deprived of yogurt, a G-Rated Drug, he undergoes weird symptoms and goes into a zombie-like state with drool between his teeth (the teeth are a side effect of the withdrawal).
- Legion of Super Heroes (2006): Whenever Timber Wolf enters his feral form (and in one instance where he roars in his normal state), expect him to be salivating quite a bit.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- "Bats!": The extra-creepy version of the vampire bats in Applejack's portion of the song are depicted with strings of saliva connecting their upper and lower jaws.
- "Maud Pie": An arthropod variant. When he's introduced, Fuzzy Legs the spider has thick strings of drool hanging between his mandibles.
- "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?": Monster Angel Bunny has a thick string of drool connecting its upper and lower jaws when he roars.
- Mega Babies: Every character. And we mean every. Single. Character has a mouth full of drool whenever they open their mouths.
- Project G.e.e.K.e.R.: Noah develops this after being hit with a tracking device and turning feral as a side effect. Geeker and all the other G.K.R. projects also exhibit constant drooling, minus the dripping fangs.
- While not uncommon among the more monstrous foes Samurai Jack fights, a particularly thick and nasty example◊ comes courtesy of a zombie, freshly raised from the dead, opening its mouth to scream.
