''The Lexicon of Comicana'' is a 1980 book by the American
cartoonist
A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...
Mort Walker
Addison Morton Walker (September 3, 1923 – January 27, 2018) was an American comic strip writer, best known for creating the newspaper comic strips ''Beetle Bailey'' in 1950 and ''Hi and Lois'' in 1954. He signed Addison to some of his strips. ...
. It was intended as a
tongue-in-cheek
The idiom tongue-in-cheek refers to a humorous or sarcastic statement expressed in a serious manner.
History
The phrase originally expressed contempt, but by 1842 had acquired its modern meaning. Early users of the phrase include Sir Walter Scott ...
look at the devices used by
comics cartoonists. In it, Walker invented an international set of
symbol
A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...
s called ''symbolia'' after researching cartoons around the world (described by the term ''comicana''). In 1964, Walker had written an article called "Let's Get Down to Grawlixes", a satirical piece for the
National Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...
. He used terms such as ''grawlixes'' for his own amusement, but they soon began to catch on and acquired an unexpected validity. The ''Lexicon'' was written in response to this.
The names he invented for them sometimes appear in
dictionaries
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, p ...
, and serve as convenient terminology occasionally used by cartoonists and critics. A
2001
The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...
gallery showing of comic- and street-influenced art in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, for example, was called "''Plewds! Squeans! and Spurls!''"
Examples
*''Agitrons'': wiggly lines around a shaking object or character.
*''Blurgits, swalloops'': curved lines preceding or trailing after a character's moving limbs.
*''Briffits'' (💨): clouds of dust that hang in the wake of a swiftly departing character or object.
*''Dites, hites and vites'': straight lines drawn across flat, clear and reflective surfaces, such as windows and mirrors. The first letter indicates direction: diagonal, horizontal and vertical respectively. Hites may also be used trailing after something moving with
great speed.
*''Emanata'': lines drawn around the head to indicate shock or surprise
*''
Grawlixes'' (#, $, *, @): typographical symbols standing in for
profanities
Profanity, also known as cursing, cussing, swearing, bad language, foul language, obscenities, expletives or vulgarism, is a socially offensive use of language. Accordingly, profanity is language use that is sometimes deemed impolite, ru ...
, appearing in dialogue balloons in place of actual dialogue.
*''Indotherm'' (♨): wavy, rising lines used to represent steam or heat.
*''Lucaflect'': a shiny spot on a surface of something, depicted as a
four-paned window shape.
*''Plewds'' (💦): flying
sweat
Perspiration, also known as sweating, is the production of fluids secreted by the sweat glands in the skin of mammals.
Two types of sweat glands can be found in humans: eccrine glands and apocrine glands. The eccrine sweat glands are distribut ...
droplets that appear around a character's head when working hard, stressed, etc.
*''Quimps'' (🪐): A special example of the grawlix, a symbol resembling the planet
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...
.
*''Solrads'': radiating lines drawn from something luminous like a lightbulb or the sun.
*''Squeans'' (💫): little starbursts or circles that signify
intoxication
Intoxication — or poisoning, especially by an alcoholic or narcotic substance — may refer to:
* Substance intoxication:
** Alcohol intoxication
** LSD intoxication
** Toxidrome
** Tobacco intoxication
** Cannabis intoxication
** Cocaine i ...
, dizziness, or sickness.
Additional symbolia terms include whiteope, sphericasia, that-a-tron, spurls, oculama, crottles, maledicta balloons, farkles, doozex, staggeratron, boozex, digitrons, nittles, waftaroms, and jarns.
See also
*
Cartoon physics
Cartoon physics or animation physics are terms for a jocular system of laws of physics (and biology) that supersedes the normal laws, used in animation for humorous effect.
Many of the most famous American animated films, particularly those from ...
*
Glossary of comics terminology
developed specialized terminology. Some several attempts have been made to formalize and define the terminology of comics by authors such as Will Eisner, Scott McCloud, R. C. Harvey and Dylan Horrocks. Much of the terminology in English is un ...
*
Manga iconography
Japanese manga has developed its own visual language or iconography for expressing emotion and other internal character states. This drawing style has also migrated into anime, as many manga stories are adapted into television shows and films. ...
*
Sniglet
A sniglet () is an often humorous word made up to describe something for which no dictionary word exists. Introduced in the 1980s TV comedy series ''Not Necessarily the News'', sniglets were generated and published in significant numbers, along wit ...
References
Bibliography
* Steve Edgell, Tim Pilcher, Brad Brooks, ''The Complete Cartooning Course: Principles, Practices, Techniques'' (London: Barron's, 2001), pp. 50–51,
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lexicon of Comicana, The
1980 books
Books about comics
Cartooning
Comics terminology
Constructed languages
Linguistics books
Symbolism
Symbols