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Oct 2018

I'm working on a scene with a heartbeat sound effect, and it got me thinking of what onomatopoeia's people use for their comic sounds. Feel free to add yours and what sound/action they represent!

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    Oct '18
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    Oct '18
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Artist: Otto! What does a living universe sound like?
Me: Lol Idk, Vroommff?

I wanted it to sound kind of like a firework going off, or like a gas fireplace suddenly turning on.

In fitting with my linguistics therme, I base most of my ideophones off of trilateral Semitic roots. Here are two examples:

R-S-Q: To smash or pulverize

Ḥ-L-(P/F): To move past, pass by

Let me get my stethoscope and check. lubDUB lubDUB lubDUB for a normal heartbeat, although I've never actually had to use that, conveying the human pulse with an EKG line instead.

Given that I write military history, and particularly a lot about aviation, there's a lot of BOOM, krkBOOM,, and such for explosions, wooOOoowooOOoowooOOoo for sirens, veeeeROOOOOOOMMMMMM for fast flying aircraft, thwupthwupthwupthwup for helicopters and also for rounds hitting dirt, and for various weaponry, BOOM! POW! kaBLAM, BRRRATATATAT, PRRAKATAKATAKA, and especially in Tiger on the Storm1, the A-10's notorious BRRRRT!

I haven't really been doing comics for a long time, but I often find myself making sound effects using just the literal word for what is happening.

Including sound effects for things that don't technically make sounds. I'm pretty sure this is manga's influence on me.

Anyway sometimes I think this can have a comedic effect.

Thanks! In terms of sound effects, I'm heavily influenced by the guys who kind of split duty at EC Comics and early Mad Magazine. Wally Wood and Jack Davis in particular, I would say.

This reminds me of a funny story. When Erik Larsen was regularly making monthly issues of Savage Dragon at Image Comics in the late 90s, he would go nuts with sound effects. It wouldn't be uncommon to see a splash page in which the entire background was filled with the word "pow" repeated about a hundred times. In the letters page, Erik printed one fan letter in which the fan asked something like, "Do you copy-paste all those sound effect words"?

Erik wrote back, "No, our letterer Chris Eliopolus draws every word by hand, and he curses me with every one."

That is funny! I just assumed he was a big Walt Simonson fan.

And yeah, I know Workman had to clean up all the lettering on Thor, like Eliopolus did for Larsen, but they're both good examples of artist collaborating with the letterers since they're so integrated into the art/story versus jammed into a cluttered corner of the panel.

I don't use them so often but when I do I like to play around with spellings of onomatopoeic words, to emphasise them. (I shortened "snif" so it would feel quieter and lengthened the "squeezzz" so it would feel tense and drawn out)

I just make sounds with my mouth. If I like it, then I add it.