Word Balloons
Outcault's word balloons in the Yellow Kid influenced the basic appearance and use of balloons in subsequent newspaper comic strips and comic books. Word balloons containing characters' speech had appeared in political cartoons since at least the 18th century, including some published by Benjamin Franklin. Their origins can be traced back to speech scrolls, painted ribbons of paper which trailed from the mouths of speaking subjects, depicting their words. These were in common European use by the early 16th century and similar devices had appeared in Mayan art between 600 and 900 AD.
Read more about this topic: The Yellow Kid
Famous quotes containing the words word and/or balloons:
“A poet who makes use of a worse word instead of a better, because the former fits the rhyme or the measure, though it weakens the sense, is like a jeweller, who cuts a diamond into a brilliant, and diminishes the weight to make it shine more.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“Canaries in the morning, orchestras
In the afternoon, balloons at night. That is
A difference, at least from nightingales,
Jehovah and the great sea-worm.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)