Speech Bubble Types in Comics: Shout, Whisper, Thought, SFX

There are five speech bubble types you will use again and again: the plain speech balloon, the spiky shout, the small dashed whisper, the cloud-shaped thought bubble and the geometric robot balloon. Each one tells the reader how a line sounds before they read it, which is why a good letterer never picks a shape at random.

Add sound effects and you have the whole toolkit. Here is what each piece does, with the kind of moment it suits in a story about real people.

The plain speech balloon: your default voice

The standard speech balloon is a rounded shape with a tail pointing at the speaker. It carries most of a comic. Because it is neutral, it works for the moment a daughter in Leeds says "You kept the letters?" as well as for a joke at a wedding table.

Two habits make it work. First, keep it short: under ten words reads at a glance, and a long speech should be split across two balloons in separate panels. Second, put balloons in reading order. The first speaker sits higher or further left, because the eye lands there first and moves right and down.

The convention is less universal than it looks. Wikipedia records that during the Gulf War, an American leaflet with a thought bubble puzzled Iraqi soldiers who had never met the device. If your readers might be new to comics, give them clean, obvious balloons.

The shout: spikes and size

A shout balloon has jagged, spiky edges, usually with bigger lettering. It fits the line that ends an argument or the cheer at the end of a match: "GOAL!" from a whole family in a Lagos living room, a coach yelling across a Melbourne oval.

Use it sparingly. A comic where everyone shouts has no volume left for the real shout. Reserve it for the one line per few pages where the room should go silent afterwards.

The whisper: small and dashed

A whisper balloon is smaller, with a dashed outline and often lighter lettering. It is made for secrets and for the things people say at 2 a.m.: "I think I'm going to say yes," murmured to a sister across a dark bedroom in Auckland.

Whispers also work at funerals and in hospital rooms. A small, quiet balloon among large panels says that the person is holding back, and the reader leans in.

The thought bubble: a cloud with bubbles

A thought bubble is a cloud with small circles leading back to the thinker. It lets a character say what they cannot say aloud, such as the nervous groom thinking "Don't drop the ring" while smiling at the guests.

Thought bubbles can feel old-fashioned, and many modern comics skip them in favour of a caption box in the character's voice. Try both. If the thought is a joke or a contrast with what the character says, the bubble earns its place. If it is plain information, a caption does the job with less clutter.

The robot balloon: for voices that aren't human

A robot balloon uses straight edges and a squared, mechanical look. It suits an actual robot, but also a phone speaker, a satnav, a radio announcer or the cold voice of an automated airport gate: "Please proceed to gate 14." It separates voices that come through a device from voices in the room.

For a story set across two cities, it is useful for the video-call glitch: your partner's lines come through a screen in a robot-style balloon while yours stay round. We cover the longer version in our long distance relationship gift ideas.

Emphasis and sound effects: the loud parts

Within a balloon, one bold, slanted word does the work a raised voice does in life: "I said I'd come." Choose one word per balloon. Two or three and the sentence turns into noise.

Sound effects, known as SFX, are lettering drawn as part of the art: SLAM, RING, CRUNCH. They are onomatopoeia, words that imitate a sound, and they differ between languages, as a dog's bark shows in English, Japanese and Spanish. Pick a sound a reader will recognise, and tilt it so it feels like the object moving.

Comic World's own rule is one sound effect per page at most, kept small enough that it never covers a face. Pop style letters it on a starburst, which is a good look for a cake falling or a door slamming.

How many balloons per panel?

Two is the practical maximum. At three the panel turns into a text wall and the art vanishes. Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, first published in 1993, is the classic study of how words and pictures share a page. Its lesson for lettering is simple: let the picture carry what it can.

A quick test: cover the words and look at the panel. If the reader can already tell the character is furious, the balloon needn't say "I am furious". Use it for what the picture cannot show, such as the exact thing she said. About a third of panels can be silent, and those are often the strongest ones.

Common questions

What is the difference between a speech bubble and a thought bubble?

A speech bubble has a solid tail pointing to the speaker and holds words said aloud. A thought bubble is cloud-shaped with a trail of small circles and holds words only the character hears.

Can I change the balloons after the comic is drawn?

On Comic World, yes. Captions, balloons and sound effects can be dragged, resized and edited on the finished comic, and only the lettering changes, so the art is never redrawn. You can also set each line's balloon type and side on the storyboard before anything is drawn.

Who decides what each character says?

You do, in the end. We write a first pass of dialogue from your interview, in the voice of each person, and you edit it. If you want a hand with the words themselves, how to write a comic covers captions and short dialogue, and comic book panel layouts shows how balloon room shapes a page.

Try it on your own story

The Explore wall shows finished pages where you can see whispers and shouts in the wild. When you are ready, tell us your story and watch your family's loudest and quietest lines take their shape.