The three most common speech ballons (top to bottom: speech, thought, scream).

Speech balloons (also speech bubbles, dialogue balloons, or word balloons) are a graphic convention used in comic books, strips, and cartoons to allow words (and much less often, pictures) to be understood as representing the speech or thoughts of a given character in the comic. There is often a formal distinction between the balloon that indicates thoughts and the one that indicates words spoken aloud: the bubble that conveys subjective thoughts is often referred to as a thought balloon. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... A comic book is a magazine or book containing the art form of comics. ... This article is about the comic strip, the sequential art form as published in newspapers and on the Internet. ... A cartoon is any of several forms of illustrations with varied meanings that evolved from its original meaning. ...

History

Prior to the 18th century, speech was depicted using bands, flags, scrolls, or sheets of paper.^[1]

One of the earliest antecedents to the modern speech bubble were the “speech scrolls”, wispy lines that connected first person speech to the mouths of the speakers in Late Classic era (600-900 CE) Mayan art.^[2] Image File history File links Strigel_1506-detail. ... Image File history File links Strigel_1506-detail. ...

In Western graphic art, labels that reveal what a pictured figure is speaking have appeared since at least the 13th century. More recognizably modern "speech balloons" begin appearing in 17th century printed broadsides. Political cartoons from the American Revolution often used speech balloons. [1] With the development of the comics industry in the 20th century, the appearance of speech balloons has become increasingly standardized, though the formal conventions that have evolved in different cultures (USA as opposed to Japan, for example), can be quite distinct. Comics (or, less commonly, sequential art) is a form of visual art consisting of images which are commonly combined with text, often in the form of speech balloons or image captions. ...

Four different shapes of speech or thought balloons.

The Yellow Kid is generally credited as the first true comic strip character. His words initially appeared on his yellow shirt, but word balloons very much like those in use today were added almost immediately, as early as 1896. By the start of the 20th century the use of word balloons was ubiquitous, and since that time only a very few comic strips and comic books have relied on captions, notably Hal Foster's Prince Valiant and the early Tarzan comic strip. For many years, word balloons were less common in Europe than in the USA, or were used together with captions. One example is the Dutch cartoonist Marten Toonder's comics about Tom Puss and Oliver B. Bumble, where the literary captions are printed out below the strip and almost take up as much space as the drawings, so that the strip fills twice the space of most newspaper strips. A similar example from England is Rupert the Bear. - from the JP-WP File links The following pages link to this file: Speech balloon Categories: GFDL images ... - from the JP-WP File links The following pages link to this file: Speech balloon Categories: GFDL images ... Mickey Dugan, better known as The Yellow Kid, was the lead fictional character in Hogans Alley, one of the first comic strips and the very first to be printed in color. ... Harold Rudolph Foster (August 18, 1892 in Halifax, Nova Scotia - July 25, 1982) created the comic Prince Valiant. ... Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur, or simply Prince Valiant, is a comic strip created by Hal Foster. ... James H. Pierce and Joan Burroughs Pierce starred in the 1932-34 Tarzan radio series 1964 Edition of Tarzan of the Apes Tarzan, a fictional character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, first appeared in the 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes, and then in twenty-three sequels. ... Marten Toonder (May 2, 1912 – July 27, 2005) was a Dutch comic writer, born in Rotterdam. ... Tom Puss is a fictional anthropomorphic cat and one of the two main characters of an originally Dutch series of comic books with the same name created by Marten Toonder. ... Oliver B. Bumble ( in Dutch language) is a fictional anthropomorphic bear and one of the two main characters, the other being Tom Puss (Tom Poes in Dutch), of an originally Dutch series of comic books bearing the name of either one main characters in their name, written by Marten Toonder. ... Rupert the Bear is a cartoon character created by Mary Tourtel in the 1920s. ...

Popular forms

Speech bubbles

The most common is the speech bubble. It comes in two forms for two circumstances: An in-panel character and an off-panel character. An in-panel character (one who is fully or mostly visible in the panel of the strip of comic that the reader is viewing) uses a bubble with a pointer, called a tail, directed towards the speaker coming out of it.

An off-panel character (the comic book equivalent of being "off screen") has several options, some of them rather unconventional. The first is a standard speech bubble with the tail pointing to the side of the panel that the speaker is closest to. The second option, which is currently only used in manga, has the tail pointing into the bubble, instead of out. (This tail is still pointing towards the speaker.) The third option replaces the tail with a sort of bottleneck that connects with the side of the panel. It can be seen in the works of graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi (author of Persepolis). Manga )   (pl. ... Trade paperback of Will Eisners A Contract with God (1978), often mistakenly cited as the first graphic novel. ... Marjane Satrapi self portrait Marjane Satrapi (Persian: مرجانه ساتراپی) (born November 22, 1969 in Rasht, Iran) is a contemporary graphic novelist and illustrator. ... Persepolis is a French-language autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi that describes her childhood in Iran during the overthrow of the Shah. ...

Some American comics have used a speech bubble without a tail, to show that the location and identity of the speaker are nondescript or part of a large crowd.

Off-panel characters who are also off the time and space shown in the panel, not uncommon in American comics for dramatic purposes, often speak in square bubbles without a tail, thus looking like captions. To prevent them from being wrongly taken as captions, these off-panel voices are written between double quotes.

Thought bubbles

Thought bubbles come in two forms: the chain thought bubble and the "fuzzy" bubble.

The chain thought bubble is the almost universal symbol for thinking in cartoons. It consists of a large, cloud-like bubble containing the text of the thought, which is connected to the area next to a character by a chain of increasingly smaller circular bubbles. Cumulus mediocris clouds, as seen from a plane window. ...

Another, less conventional thought bubble has emerged: the "fuzzy" thought bubble. Used in manga (by such artists as Ken Akamatsu), the fuzzy bubble is roughly circular in shape (generally), but the edge of the bubble is not a line but a collection of spikes close to each other, creating the impression of fuzziness. Fuzzy thought bubbles do not use tails, and are placed in the area of the character who is thinking. This has the advantage of reflecting the TV equivalent effect: something said with an echo. Self Portrait Ken Akamatsu (赤松健 Akamatsu Ken) is a manga artist, born in Kanagawa prefecture, Japan, on July 5, 1968. ...

An artist can refuse to use thought bubbles, expressing the action through spoken dialogue and drawing. An example is David Lloyd in V for Vendetta. Cover art for the collected edition of V for Vendetta by David Lloyd David Lloyd (born 1950) is a British comics artist best known as the illustrator of the graphic novel V for Vendetta, written by Alan Moore. ... This article is about the comic book series. ...

Other forms

The shape of a speech balloon can be used to convey further information. Common ones include the following:

• Scream bubbles have a spiny "exploding" outline, often a flash-like tail and usually contain bold large lettering. They indicate that the speaker is screaming.
• Broadcast bubbles (also known as radio bubbles) may have a jagged tail like the conventional drawing of a lightning flash and a squared-off, jagged outline. Letters are sometimes italicised without also being bold. Broadcast bubbles indicate that the speaker is communicating through an electronic device, such as a radio or television, or is robotic.
• Whisper bubbles have a dashed (dotted) outline, and usually contains small dim lettering. They indicate that the speaker is whispering.
• Icicle bubbles have large "icicles" dropping from them. They indicate that the speaker is "ice cold" towards someone or something.
• Colored bubbles convery the emotion that goes with the speech, such as red for anger or green for envy. This style is not however used as often in modern comics.

Captions

Captions are generally used for narration purposes. They are generally square and connected to the edge of the panel. Often they are also colored to indicate the difference between them and the bubbles used by the characters, which are almost always white. Captions have become commonplace in modern comics, replacing the old style thought bubbles. In fiction, a narrator is a voice or character who tells the story. ...

Artist-specific variations

Yellow Kid's words appear on his shirt

Some characters and strips use highly unconventional methods of communication. Perhaps the most notable is the Yellow Kid, an early American comic strip. His (but not the other characters') words would appear on his large, smock-like shirt. Yellow Kid Cropped, sized; original from http://www. ... Yellow Kid Cropped, sized; original from http://www. ... Mickey Dugan, better known as The Yellow Kid, was the lead fictional character in Hogans Alley, one of the first comic strips and the very first to be printed in color. ... Mickey Dugan, better known as The Yellow Kid, was the lead fictional character in Hogans Alley, one of the first comic strips and the very first to be printed in color. ... This article is about the comic strip, the sequential art form as published in newspapers and on the Internet. ...

Also noteworthy are the many variations on the form created by Dave Sim for his comic Cerebus the Aardvark. Depending on the shape, size, and position of the bubble, as well as the texture and shape of the letters within it, Sim could convey large amounts of information about the speaker. This included separate bubbles for different states of mind (drunkenness, etc), for echoes, and a special class of bubbles for one single floating apparition. David Victor Sim (born May 17, 1956 in Hamilton, Ontario) is a Canadian comic book writer and artist, best known as the creator of the 6,000 page graphic novel Cerebus the Aardvark. ... Cerebus the Aardvark (or simply Cerebus) is an independent comic book, written and illustrated by Canadian artist Dave Sim, with backgrounds by fellow Canadian Gerhard. ...

An early pioneer in experimenting with many different types of speech balloons and lettering for different types of speech was Walt Kelly, in his Pogo strip. Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr (August 25, 1913 - October 18, 1973), known simply as Walt Kelly, was a cartoonist notable for his comic strip Pogo featuring characters that inhabited a portion of the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. ... Pogo as drawn by Walt Kelly. ...

In the famous French comic series Asterix, Goscinny and Uderzo use bubbles without tails to indicate a distant or unseen speaker. They also have had fun experimenting with many different types of lettering to suit characters with distinct nationalities, thus meaning they speak a different language that Asterix may not understand, but the readers can. So Goths spoke in a blackletter font, Greek had a more angular font than normal (though always understood by the characters, so it's more of an accent than a language), Norse used "Nørdic åccents", Egyptian was in faux hieroglyphs etc. Another original experiment with speech bubbles was exclusive to one album, Asterix and the Roman Agent. The agent in question was a vile manipulator who could create dissension amongst any group of people with a single innocent-sounding comment. His victims start quarreling and ultimately fighting each other while speaking in green-colored speech bubbles, which symbolize darnel. For other uses, see Asterix (disambiguation). ... René Goscinny (August 14, 1926 – November 5, 1977) Polish- French author, editor and humorist, who is best known for the comic strip Astérix, which he created with illustrator Albert Uderzo, and the comic strip Lucky Luke. // Early life René was born in Paris in 1926, to Stanislaw Simkha Goscinny... Albert Uderzo Albert Uderzo (born April 25, 1927 in France) is a French comic book artist, and scriptwriter. ... Blackletter in a Latin Bible of AD 1407, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. ... A section of the Papyrus of Ani showing cursive hieroglyphs. ... Asterix and the Roman Agent is the fifteenth volume of the Asterix comic book series, by René Goscinny (stories) and Albert Uderzo (illustrations). ...

Font variation is a common tactic in comics. The Sandman series, written by Neil Gaiman, features many characters whose speech bubbles are written with a font that is exclusive to them. Some examples: the main character, the gloomy Dream speaks in wavy-edged bubbles, completely black, with similarly wavy white lettering. His sister, the scatterbrained and whimsical Delirium speaks in bubbles in a many-colored explosive background with uneven lettering, and the irreverent raven Matthew speaks in a shaky angular kind of bubble with scratchy lettering. Other characters, such as John Dee, have special shapes of bubbles for their own. The Sandman is a comic book series written by Neil Gaiman and published in the United States by DC Comics for 75 issues from 1988 until 1996. ... Neil Richard Gaiman () (born November 10, 1960, Portchester, Hampshire) is an English author of numerous science fiction and fantasy works, including many graphic novels. ... Cover of The Sandman #1, by Dave McKean. ... Delirium amid fish Delirium is one of the Endless, fictional characters from Neil Gaimans comic book series The Sandman. ... This is a list of characters appearing in The Sandman comic book, published by DC Comics Vertigo imprint. ...

In MAD Magazine, in the recurring "Monroe" comic strip, certain words are written larger or in unusual fonts for emphasis. Harvey Kurtzmans cover for the first issue of the comic book Mad Mad is an American humor magazine founded by publisher William Gaines and editor Harvey Kurtzman in 1952. ...

In manga, there is a tendency to include the speech necessary for the storyline in balloons, while small scribbles outside the balloons add side comments, often used for irony or to show that they're said in a much smaller voice. Satsuki Yotsuba in the manga series Negima is notable because she speaks almost entirely in side scribble. Manga )   (pl. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Negima: Magister Negi Magi ) is a manga and anime series by Ken Akamatsu, known for his best selling title, Love Hina, which contains a large amount of Fan service/ecchi scenes. ...

In the silent film Life of a Tennis Ball (film), the director used "subtle subtitles" to convey dialogue much in the same way as speech balloons in comics. Lines of dialogue were positioned in frame according to the source of the line, and also so that the lines may be read left to right, top to bottom. Some lines faded, rather than cut away, to emphasize emotions.

Graphic symbols in speech bubbles

Speech bubbles are used not only to include a character's words, but also emotions, voice inflections and unspecified language.

Punctuation marks

One of the universal emblems of the art of comics is the use of a single punctuation mark to depict a character's emotions, much more efficiently than any possible sentence. A speech bubble with a single big question mark (?) (often drawn by hand, not counted as part of the lettering) denotes confusion or ignorance. An exclamation mark (!) indicates surprise or terror. This resource is broadly used in the European comic tradition, the Belgian artist Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin series being a good example. In other countries, the punctuation marks stand alone above the character's head, with no bubble needed. The question mark (also known as an interrogation point, query,[1] or eroteme) is a punctuation mark that replaces the full stop at the end of an interrogative sentence. ... an exclamation mark An exclamation mark, exclamation point or bang, !, is usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feeling. ... Georges Remi (May 22, 1907 – March 3, 1983), better known by the pen name Hergé, was a Belgian comics writer and artist. ... The main characters and others from The Castafiore Emerald, one of the later books The Adventures of Tintin (French: ) is a series of Belgian comic books created by Belgian artist Hergé, the pen name of Georges Remi (1907–1983). ...

In manga, the ellipsis (i.e. three dots) is also used to express silence in a much more significant way than the mere absence of bubbles. This is specially seen when a character is supposed to say something, to indicate a stunned silence or when a sarcastic comment is expected by the reader. The ellipsis, along with the big drop of sweat on the character's temple—usually depicting shame, confusion, or embarrassment caused by other people's actions— is one of the Japanese graphic symbols that have taken root in comics all around the world, although they are still rare in Western tradition. Japanese even has a sound effect for "deafening silence," shiin (シーン, shiin^?). Manga )   (pl. ... Distinguish from ellipse. ...

Foreign languages

In many comic books, words that would be foreign to the narration but are displayed in translation for the reader are surrounded by angle brackets or chevrons ( <Like this> ), e.g., in the ElfQuest series, whenever any character speaks Human. See parenthesis for an account of the rhetorical concept from which the name of the punctuation mark is derived. ... Elfquest #5, 1979. ...

Gilbert Hernandez' series about Palomar is written in English, but supposed to take place mainly in a hispanic country. Thus, what's supposed to be representations of Spanish speech is written without brackets, but occasional actual English speech is written within brackets, to indicate that it is unintelligible to the main hispanophone characters in the series. Gilbert Hernandez (born February 1, 1957), also known as Gilberto Hernandez (pronounced /heel-bear-toe/) or simply Beto (pronounced /beh-toe/), is along with his brothers Jaime and Mario a co-creator of the black and white independent comic Love and Rockets, published by Fantagraphics Books. ... Love and Rockets (often abbreviated L&R) is a black and white comic book series by Gilbert Hernandez and Jaime Hernandez, sometimes cited jointly as Los Bros Hernandez. ...  Countries where Spanish has official status. ...  Countries where Spanish has official status. ...

Other comic books use a different font or balloon style to the same end.

Some comics will have the actual foreign language in the speech balloon, with the translation as a footnote. It's much used in Asterix with Romans citing Latin sayings.

The big Z

It is a convention in American comics that the sound of a snore can be reduced to a single letter Z. Thus a speech bubble with this letter standing all alone (again, drawn by hand rather than a font type) means the character is sleeping in most humorous comics. This can be seen, for instance, in Charles Schulz's Peanuts comic strips. Charles Monroe Schulz (November 26, 1922 - February 12, 2000) was a 20th-century American cartoonist best known for his Peanuts comic strip. ... Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000 (the day after Schulzs death). ...

Being such a long-based resource, the Z-bubble doesn't even imply that the character is snoring anymore, but just sleeping. Jim Davis has based some jokes starring Garfield upon this technique. For example, in one strip, Garfield is unable to sleep because his Z-bubble is pointing in the wrong direction. When he grabs the bubble's tail to make it point at himself, he falls asleep. James Robert Jim Davis (born July 28, 1945), is an American cartoonist who created the popular comic strip Garfield. ... This article contains a trivia section. ...

Originally, the resemblance between the 'z' sound and that of a snore seemed exclusive to the English language, but the spread of American comics has made it a frequent feature in other countries. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Drawings within the speech bubble

Singing characters usually have musical notes drawn into their word balloons. Archie Comics' Melody Valentine, a character in their Josie and the Pussycats comic, has musical notes drawn into her word balloons at all times, depicting the fact that she speaks in a sing-song voice. This article is about music. ... Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher known for its many series featuring the fictional teenage Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Forsythe Jughead Jones characters created by Bob Montana. ... Melody Valentine is one of the main characters in Josie and the Pussycats. ... Josie and the Pussycats (also known as Shes Josie and Josie) is a teenage humor comic book about a fictitious rock band, created by Dan DeCarlo and published by Archie Comics. ...

The above mentioned Albert Uderzo in the Asterix series uses to decorate speech bubbles with beautiful flowers depicting an extremely soft, sweet voice (usually preceding a violent outburst by the same character).

A stormy cloud with a rough lightning sticking out of it, either in a bubble or just floating above the character's head as a modified 'cloudy' thought bubble, depicts anger, not always verbally expressed.

Light bulbs are sometimes used when the character comes up with an idea or solution to a problem. The incandescent light bulb uses a glowing wire filament heated to white-hot by electrical resistance, to generate light (a process known as thermal radiation). ...

In the Western world, it is common to replace profanity with a string of nonsense symbols (&%$@*$#), sometimes called grawlixes. In comics that are usually addressed to children or teenagers, bad language is censored by replacing it with more or less elaborate drawings and expressionistic symbols. For example, instead of calling someone a swine, a pig is drawn in the speech bubble. The Lexicon of Comicana is a book that was written in 1980 by American cartoonist Mort Walker. ... Censorship is defined as the removal and withholding of information from the public by a controlling group or body. ...

One example is the Spanish Mortadelo series, created by Francisco Ibáñez. Although not specifically addressed to children, Mortadelo was born during Francisco Franco's dictatorship, when censorship was the order of the day and the slightest attempt of rough language was prohibited. When Ibáñez's characters are angry, donkey heads, lightning, lavatories, billy goats and even faux Japanese characters are often seen in their bubbles. A spanish comic series by Francisco Ibáñez. ... Mortadelo, no. ... Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde (4 December 1892–20 November[1] 1975), commonly abbreviated to Francisco Franco (pron. ... Forms of government Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by a dictator. ...

When Mortadelo was portrayed on film by Spanish director Javier Fesser in 2003, one of the critiques made to his otherwise successful adaptation was the character's use of words that never appeared in the comics. Fesser claimed: "When you see a bubble speech containing a lightning falling on a pig, what do you imagine the character's saying?" Javier Fesser (Madrid, 1964) is a Spanish film director and publicist. ...

Order

In order for comic strip and graphic novel dialogue to make sense, it has to be read in order. Thus, conventions have evolved in the order in which the communication bubbles are read. The individual bubbles are read in the order of the language. For example, in English, the bubbles are read from left to right in a panel, while in Japanese, it is the other way around. Sometimes the bubbles are "stacked", with two characters having multiple bubbles, one above the other. Such stacks are read from the top down. Poor use of speech balloons can unintentionally make the proper reading order ambiguous, confusing the reader. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Lettering

Traditionally, a cartoonist or occupational letterer would draw in all the individual letters in the balloons and sound effects by hand. A modern alternative, used by most comics today and universal in English-translated manga, is to letter with computer programs. The fonts used usually emulate the style of hand-lettering. In comic books, the letterer is the person who draws the letters in the word balloons, draws in sound effects and usually designs a books logo. ... A font can mean: A member of a typeface family; or digital font - file format that encapsulates a typeface family in a database. ...

Traditionally, most mainstream comic books are lettered entirely in upper-case, with a few exceptions: Majuscules or capital letters (in the Roman alphabet: A, B, C, ...) are one type of case in a writing system. ...

• The "c" in a surname of Scottish or Irish origin starting with "Mc"
• To indicate a frightened or quiet manner of speech
• An interjection such as "er", "um", etc.

More recently, a new trend has shifted with many titles often employing mixed case in even mainstream titles such as Spider-Man and X-Men often using mixed case in lettering. A family name, or surname, is that part of a persons name that indicates to what family he or she belongs. ...

In a few comics (for example the English language version of The Adventures of Tintin), uppercase and lowercase are used as in ordinary writing. Since the mid-1980s, mixed case lettering has gradually become more widely used in mainstream books. The main characters and others from The Castafiore Emerald, one of the later books The Adventures of Tintin (French: ) is a series of Belgian comic books created by Belgian artist Hergé, the pen name of Georges Remi (1907–1983). ... Mixed case is the standard usage of upper-case and lower-case letters. ...

Substance of balloons

In several occasions, comics artists have used balloons (or similar narrative devices) as if they have true substance, usually for humorous purposes. In Peanuts, for example, the notes played by Schroeder occasionally take substance and are used in various ways, including Christmas decorations or standing places for birds. Sometimes balloons can be influenced by the strip's environment: in the Italian strip Sturmtruppen they freeze and crack when the temperature is very low, or an Archie comic strip where two men from Alaska remarked on how cold it was, by saying the speech balloons froze as they said them, and the words had to be thawed out to be heard. Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000 (the day after Schulzs death). ... Schroeder is a fictional character in the long-running comic strip Peanuts, created by Charles M. Schulz. ... Sturmtruppen is a successful Italian series of anti-war comic books, written and drawn by Bonvi, the artistic pseudonym of Franco Bonvicini starting as four-frame comic strips back in the 1970s and evolving into fully sized collector books up to the 1990s and first decade of the third millennium. ...

Computer-generated speech balloons

Many digital artists generate speech balloons with general-purpose illustration software. Products like Comic Book Creator for Microsoft Windows, Comic Life for Mac OS X, and the cross-platform application Balloonist target the non-professional end of the market. The following is a list of vector graphics editors. ... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ... Comic Life is a shareware desktop publishing computer program developed by plasq for Apple Macintosh computers. ... Mac OS X (official IPA pronunciation: ) is a line of proprietary, graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ...

TXTual Healing is a street art performance that involves strategically projecting interactive speech bubbles onto the facade of a building, as if they are coming out of the doors and windows. Using a computer paired with a cell phone, people in the street can generate their own content for the bubbles by sending in an SMS message.

References

1. ^ Evolution of speech balloons. Retrieved on August 24, 2006.
2. ^ Hull, Kerry Michael (2003). "Verbal Art and Performance in Ch’orti’ and Maya Hieroglyphic Writing".

See also

• Balloon help
• The Bubble Project

Balloon help was a tooltips-type help system introduced by Apple Computer in their System 7 operating system release. ... This The Bubble Project does not cite its references or sources. ...

External links

• Picture of a Mayan painted pot A depiction of speech scrolls.
• Detailed Step-by-Step Tutorial for Creating Speech Bubbles (Word Balloons) for Comics, Cartoons and Gag Strips