Category: Cartoons

Farewell, Thought Bubbles!

8/1/2021

by Thomas LaPorte

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

A few weeks ago, I started reading “The Death of Superman” story arc. This was a massive comics storyline during the 1990s, one which is still discussed to this day. When I opened the first page, I noticed something I haven’t seen in a long time, something once considered a convention of comics: thought bubbles. See, I have dedicated my comic reading to issues from 2000-2011; by that time, thought bubbles had completely vanished from comic panels. In fact, comic storytelling overall had changed, and I believe a major part of it was due to the extinction of thought bubbles.

Since superhero comics first made their appearance in 1938 with the dawn of Superman, thought bubbles were used to convey plot and inner dialogue; they were a staple of the comics genre. However, somewhere in the 1990s, the thought bubbles seemingly vanished from comics. Comic thought bubbles are a hindrance to modern comic books and they should stay gone.

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Why Writers Should Watch Cartoons

9/1/2019

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by Laura Kincaid

I watch cartoons. I’m not talking about Family Guy or Rick and Morty, but cartoons created for and targeted at children. I’m not alone. Shows like Steven Universe, Adventure Time, and Avatar: The Last Airbender have garnered huge audiences from kids to teens to twenty-somethings and older. Countless blogs and video essays propose a pile of reasons why cartoons are suddenly “not just for kids anymore” like how they relieve stress, produce a sense of nostalgia, or provide life lessons useful to everyone. But when people ask me why I watch cartoons, I answer: “For the writing.”

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Farewell, Thought Bubbles!

Why Writers Should Watch Cartoons

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