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The Lexicon of Comicana is a book that was written in 1980 by American cartoonist Mort Walker. It was intended as a tongue-in-cheek look at the devices cartoonists utilize in their craft. In it, Walker invented an international set of symbols called Symbolia after researching cartoons around the world. In 1964, Walker had written an article called "Let's Get Down to Grawlixes," a satirical piece for the National Cartoonists Society. Walker 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 fact.
The names he invented for them sometimes appear in dictionaries and serve as convenient terminology occasionally used by cartoonists. A 2001 gallery showing of comic- and street-influenced art in San Francisco, for example, was called "Plewds! Squeams! and Spurls!"*
Examples from Symbolia include:
Plewds
Plewds are the sweat droplets that appear around a character's head when working hard or stressed.
Briffits
The little clouds of dust that signify movement, especially rapid movement.
Squeans
Little starbursts or circles that signify intoxication or drunkenness.
Emanata
Lines drawn around the head to indicate shock or surprise.
Grawlixes
The typographical symbols that stand for profanities, which appear in dialogue balloons in the place of actual dialogue.
Other Terms
Additional Symbolia terms include whiteope, sphericasia, swaloop, agitron, that-a-tron, spurls, oculama, crottles, waftatron, blurgit, vites, dites, hites, up-hites, lucaflects, maledicta balloons, solrads, indotherm, farkles, doozex, staggeration, boozex, digitrons, nittles, quimp, and jarns.
A Gallery of Symbolia
Sources
- Wordwizard Clubhouse
- Steve Edgell, Brad! Brooks, Tim Pilcher, The Complete Cartooning Course (London: Barron’s, 2001), 50-1.
Cartooning | Symbols | Symbolism | Constructed languages | 1980 books
"The Lexicon of Comicana"