History Main / SpeechBubbles

[[folder:Manga and Manhwa]]

* ''Manhwa/{{Priest|1998}}'' 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 ''Manhwa/TheTarotCafe'' speaks in an elegant Gothic font.

* ''Webcomic/Aurora2019'': Most characters have basic black-text-white-background speech bubbles with variations in shape to convey tone and volume. Some supernatural characters, mostly gods, have [[https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-1-4/ speech bubbles]] with brightly colored text and background matching the character's overall color scheme. [[AboveTheGods Elemental primordials]] don't use speech bubbles at all; their speech [[https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-17/ appears]] as text imposed directly over the scene and is further embellished by a distinctive font and a larger text size.

* ''Webcomic/Aurora2019'': Most characters have basic black-text-white-background speech bubbles with variations in shape to convey tone and volume. Some supernatural characters, mostly [[PhysicalGod gods]], have speech bubbles with brightly colored text and background matching the character's overall color scheme. [[AboveTheGods Elemental primordials]] don't use speech bubbles at all; their speech appears as text imposed directly over the scene and is further embellished by a distinctive font and a larger text size.

* Marvel comics:

* The ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' series love to play with the speech bubbles. 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 ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' at least, Boss characters also have a different ''sound effect'' that goes with the scrolling text in their speech bubbles.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* ''Manhwa/{{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.

** [[OminousVisualGlitch Glitchmaster]] speaks entirely in ''VideoGame/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.

* In ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'', StarfishAliens often speak in hexagon-shaped balloons, while robots usually speak in stylized square balloons [[ShoutOut reminiscent]] of the Creator/MarvelComics {{Transformers}}.

-->-- Marvel Year in Review 1993[[note]]According to Comicbook/{{Cable}}, Deadpool has a "gravelly, Creator/DemiMoore-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,[[Creator/RyanReynolds someone]] eventually did get cast as Deadpool in a movie.[[/note]]

But Speech Bubbles aren't ''only'' generic circles or places to put words; they're {{metafiction}}al constructs that can be [[PaintingTheMedium painted,]] [[OddShapedPanel shaped]], and written different ways! Superimposed, they can indicate an [[SpeechBubblesInterruption interruption]], and 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. Some villains and monsters like to use black speech balloons and strange colored text, and mechanical voices may be squared or get rectangular "bubbles". 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.

At their most basic, Speech Bubbles are floating text circles (or [[OddShapedPanel other shapes]]) that characters in ComicBooks and WebComics or other [[NewspaperComics dimensionally-challenged]] media use to communicate.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In ''WebComic/SleeplessDomain'' {{Magical Girl}}s 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. [[spoiler: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 [[PaintingTheMedium to blend in.]]]]

See RebusBubble for when a Speech Bubble contains only symbols used like a rebus puzzle rather than words.

* In ''WebComic/SleeplessDomain'' {{Magical Girl}}s 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.

But Speech Bubbles aren't ''only'' generic circles or places to put words; they're {{metafiction}}al constructs that can be [[PaintingTheMedium painted,]] [[OddShapedPanel shaped]], and written different ways! Superimposed, they can indicate an [[SpeechBubblesInterruption interruption]], and 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. Some villains and monsters like to use black speech balloons and strange colored text, and mechanical voices sometimes get rectangular "bubbles". 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.

** In ''Paper Mario 2'' at least, Boss characters also have a different ''sound effect'' that goes with the scrolling text in their speech bubbles.

[[quoteright:240:[[ComicBook/TheSandman https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sandman_speech_bubbles_1.png]]]]

* Several characters in ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' 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. [[TheGrimReaper Death]] is the sanest and most down-to-earth of the Endless and the only one whose Speech Bubbles are completely normal.

* The Belgian cartoon short series ''ComicStrip/KabouterWesley'' does show speech bubbles when the characters are talking. While this is mostly due to the cartoons being virtually unaltered adaptations 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.

* The Belgian cartoon short series ''ComicStrip/KabouterWesley'' does show speech bubbles when the characters are talking. While this is mostly due to the cartoons being virtually unaltered adaptations 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 essantial for the text to show up to make these jokes work.

* Many cartoons of [[UsefulNotes/TheSilentAgeOfAnimation the silent era]], such as ''WesternAnimation/FelixTheCat'', would use SpeechBubbles as opposed to the word cards usually seen in live-action silent films. Lampshaded by Creator/WaltDisney in his first color television show, when he goes over how cartoons acted prior to the dawn of sound.