In that case, though, “to stare daggers at someone,” was a pre-existing English idiom for centuries before it started showing up in comics.
Ever see a cartoon racecar, that’s going so fast that it’s leaning forward? That’s actually photorealistic: Some early photographic techniques (and some modern ones, in this smartphone age) would actually make fast-moving objects appear to lean.
I remember “th’” (instead of “the”) being used in comics like Sad Sack, Little Lulu, and Spooky when I was growing up. It just seemed to me that was an accurate representation how how some people (servicemen, kids, tough guys) talked.
I spent longer looking for it than I should have, but I do remember their being a Bloom County(I think, anyway) strip from forever ago that (humorously) described several of the cartoon conventions. All I really remember from it was that the lines coming off someone’s head from anger or frustration were toxic to breathe in.
I found it by Googling “root boozles.”
Impressive google fu, I never would have thought of that phrase.
I spent a couple hours the other day looking for that. Though it did have the benefit of spending a couple hours reading through old Bloom County strips.
Sure, go with the obvious…
I like that it provides some origin info, but I’m thinking the names must be taken with a grain of salt?
Nope, look like they’re taken straight out of Mort Walker.
I have now read this (with a lot of skimming—he’s very long-winded). While this has a huge amount of info on the philosophy and structure of comics, it doesn’t really touch at all on the type of information I was curious about in the thread. I was aiming more for something like
Plop take: first known instance Thimble Theater January 17, 1923 (or even just Thimble Theater)
Hat flying off head in suprise: first known instance Buster Keaton in x short in 1919.
(Both examples completely made up.) The The Katzenjammer Kids cursing one is exactly the type of thing that I was looking for.
Sorry, guess it’s been a long time since I read it.
It is a good book, it just isn’t a good book for this question.
Mort Walker’s Lexicon of Comicana might be more what you’re looking for. I don’t think it lists first appearances, but it does have definitions for a lot of the visual shorthands and puns that were common in comics, at least up to circa 1964, when the book was published.
I’ve only been able to see the sample images in the article linked up-thread, but they are very low-information.
I came across a reprint of a comic from the early 1900’s that made fun of various comic tropes. It made me think that they were established really early on or perhaps even taken from editorial cartoons.
AFAIK, speeding vehicles that kinda slanted forward were inspired by the way the shutters of cameras recorded them. The image moved across the film as the shutter fell.
Yes, that’s what I was referring to. And a lot of phone cameras read out the detector line-by-line, and so produce a similar effect.
That th’ thing is still done a lot. I think it’s more of a visual cue for the reader, indicating casualness in the speaker. I don’t think it’s really even possible for to hear “the” shortened. It’s already about as short as it can get, imo.
oops, I didn’t see yours before I posted.
Another old language convention that I think has mostly faded away: having people who are foreign or stupid or very young speak in incredibly mangled English that nobody would actually use. For instance, I was just looking at Superboy 102 (January 1961) which was having a flashback to Supertoddler. Toddler Lana Land says:
“Clark making believe he can fly, but me know the balloons am lifting him in air”.
This, to me, seems like an incredibly unlikely set of mistakes, mixed in with words too sophisticated for a toddler. (Of course, you got the same problem with television/radio of the era, except with Tonto.)
I’ve always read th’ as “thuh” as opposed to “thee”.