Your opinion on character thought bubbles?

[ble]

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[moop]

I think they work best when they’re not just used to tell us what’s happening or what the characters feeling, but show us something new that we wouldn’t gain from the pictures or dialogue alone. Like, if a character sees a ghost and is scared, you can show them being scared without having them think “this is scary”, but if the character looks scared and they’re thinking “better act scared so the ghosts don’t feel bad”, that gives us a new layer of understanding the character. I think thought bubbles are sometimes used as a crutch when the art alone can convey all the information in them.

[Darkstrong]

I really think that thought bubbles are an easy way out, so to say. If you cannot express the character's thoughts otherwise. But every time am thinking about including one in the comic, I remember that all of my favourite movies somehow managed to show me how scared, confused, determined or what their thoughts were, without resorting to inner monologues. I think that "though bubbles" are ok in novels, because you are only using words anyway, but I always feel that comics are much closer to movies rather then to books.

[jpnakashima]

It's a tool like any other. It has a place and a use in context.

They're definitely antiquated, though. You mention superheroes but even they don't use thought balloons for 20 years now. The thought balloon was, as people in the thread pointed, substituted by square CAPTIONS (which is the name you'll find for them in DC/Marvel script samples around the internet). Originally they were used solely for the narrator's voice, but not for a long time now. That's the more modern alternative.

That said, of course you're allowed to use them. You can do anything if you think it serves the story you're telling! I unashamedly use thought bubbles A LOT in one of my comics here on Tapas. It's a superhero strip based on, among many things, 60's superhero comics. In this context, it works for me. Not saying I did a good job with it, but I tried haha

As for restrictions, I agree with what was said. The worst thing you can do is use them to describe something you can show (although even this can work in context, right?), but they can certainly give insight into elements around.

But yeah, it all depends on the story you're telling, the style, the mood, the storytelling. Anything can work in context!

[Rodimus13]

Even in books, thoughts are sometimes spelled out. And you don't ave to do the lumpy outline. Some comics will make it a straight up box with some color in it.

[Kann]

I personally use thought bubbles when characters experience things which would be hard to understand without their insight. For example a sad character doesn't need to think "I feel sad", but I had one character look closer at other's, but without the thought bubble it would be hard to explain why he was doing this. Kinda agree that the lumpy ones look a little silly, though. XD

I think it's a tool like any other but better not to overuse it and sometimes let the image speak for itself.

[LT1986]

Sometimes the bubbles are needed to make sure that the reader knows which character is thinking, if more characters are on the page.

Sometimes bubbles can be used to show variety. I like seeing different ways of the thoughts of characters being expressed. Bubbles, different colors of words, no bubbles, words that are shaped to match the thought, etc. can be used.

[JRHoch]

If you never use thought balloons or boxes, then your reader only knows what your character says but not what he or she thinks. My preference is narration boxes.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Maybe it's because (as a creator) I was raised on manga and anime, but I've never thought of thought bubbles as weird or outdated or crutches at all. =/ Tons of people use them, and there are plenty of moments in a story where having a character think through things is the only way to convey them to the reader.

Maybe it doesn't happen so often in western comics, but in western novels it's pretty common to have the narrator go through the character's thoughts and feelings at certain points in the story. I've always figured that thought bubbles were just the same technique in visual form.

One way I know they're indispensable is in internal monologue. If your character is the type of person who never does that, I guess you wouldn't need them. But I am constantly doing internal monologues, and most of my main characters have inherited that trait from me. So how else do you portray that flurry of personal thoughts? Have them walk down the street audibly talking to themselves?? Subject a poor unsuspecting side character to an info dump??

[ble]

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[elyss]

I see thought bubbles as continuation of a conversation. They're there for the things the audience should see, but not the other characters. I don't see anything wrong with so long as people aren't dumping a ton of info one panel. If you have a lot you want to get off a character's chest, you can always do all that and have the character doing other things. Like they're at work and thinking over they're life choices.

[tchotchkeco]

I don’t like it for the most part but do use it in my webcomic. Though I use thought bubbles differently.
Example:

I use thoughts to show how different the character is verbally interacting compared to what is actually going on in her head. For a character who normally doesn't say much she constantly goes on tangents and rants with herself in her head. I went this route also because there is a lot of satirical moments in the story and a lot of satire storytelling does this. I feel like it just fits in the story format I want but this style is very particular and not for everyone.

[Shanny8]

I still use thought balloons but not all the time.

[Kura]

I usually use them for 2 reasons.

One is for when the script is doing kind of a narrative from one of the characters point of view.

This doesn't happen in my scripts very often, but I did use it when I did my tapas winter holiday special. Where the main character was writing a letter to his dead mom while kind of doing a short re-cap of events that happened in the comic.

The second is for when the character's visual expressions or speaking dialog are different from how what they're thinking in a situation where normal dialogue between characters is happening (if it's just a character thinking stuff over in their head and no other character dialog they usually just get a normal speech balloon paired with visuals representing the events they're talking about). With what they're thinking being important to the narrative that you don't really want your reader to quickly skim through or miss because it could lead to confusion.

In general though I use these methods very rarely, as for me it's just kinda weird to jump the narrative from 3rd person to 1st person and then back to 3rd person for a thought if it's not important to the narrative, and I think that's just my personal preference when it comes to writing and not really a writing rule anyone needs to follow with comics.

[baasinsimple]

Kinda why I took a shift for Novels, even if I still want to do comics with more simple narratives. I like a show don't tell thing but with books I can just constantly stay in a characters mindset if I want without having to take a break from that to draw.

[Darth_Biomech]

Reviving this thread, because I've got an idea while sketching a scene in which a character is mostly thinking to themselves.
What about "bubbleless" text (just a white outline to separate it from the background and make readable) as thoughts? I think it's a good middle ground - it allows for the thoughts to be exposed, and at the same time it doesn't look silly or like narration, and also can't be mistaken for a spoken phrase. What do you think?

[kimketli]

Not bad, but it can easily blend into the background... Also black text with light outlines are harder to read if you don't put anything behind them.
I make my thought bubbles like these:


They're always black and has light letters and the bubble has light outline. The shape is changing depends on the intensity of the thoughts, but they have always little bubble tails.

[jimena]

I've seen this in mangas I think
It's like an extra dialogue, might be outspoken or not...

[kimketli]

btw I love thought bubbles I love to hear about characters' inner monologues and philosophy. I think thought bubbles is one of main reasons why I like comics as mediums. I also love inner talk in books, mostly because I also have inner talk and most of them hardly could be substituted with only pictures.
it was a shock to me when I heard not everybody have inner talk and inner voice in their head.

[Kiweevil]

I don't like the little bubbles that lead up to the big bubble, unless they're appropriate for the style of the comic. Unless of course you set it up to blend in with the style like the comic (which I think @kimketli did a good job with)

Personally, I use thought bubbles when I feel a facial expression or physical gesture isn't enough to get the point across. If a character is just thinking "wtf?" for example, I can usually just draw a face that exemplifies that notion. If they're thinking something very specific that is plot relevant, I do bubbles. A quirk of my main character is actually that she zones off in thought quite a lot, so sometimes bubbles are necessary.

This is a crappy example since my Prologue art is....lacking to say the least....but this is how I usually do my thought bubbles:

That particular panel was intentionally dark. Sorry. Bad example. But anywho I usually do tails for my speech bubbles, scribblies for thoughts ^w^