I’ve written a fairly long post about thought balloons on the Herevile website. I would have cross-posted it here, but resizing the images sounds like too much work. :-)
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I like thought balloons. They make the reader’s job a little easier, and that is always a good thing.
What about little yellow boxes? What’s the status of those?
I think it was either Stan Lee back in his book How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way or Denny O’Neil in The DC Guide to Writing Comics who goes on (at length) about how the trend towards narration boxes rather than thought bubbles severs the intimate connection with the reader. He talked about how it divorced the character from what was happening and made the experience less intimate. I don’t have my books in front of me so I can’t quote exactly.
I would say strange that Scott McCloud would differ so greatly from the industry pros, but much of what Scott McCloud does, for me, is pretty nonsensical and uninteresting.
I tend to disagree on the boxes vs. bubbles thing – I think it depends on the context. If it’s a piece that is primarily narrated by a protagonist, then boxes inappropriate. It’s a narration, not a thought-bubble. It’s Rorschach writing in his journal. It’s Batman speaking directly to the reader, talking about how his muscles feel when coming out of retirement.
That’s distinct from the “thought bubbles” approach, which is appropriate in its own place.