Though Balloons

[Briareos]

Have you read Mighty Avengers? Bendis is using thought balloons there as a stylistic choice.

[Brenz]

Your assessment nailed it on thought balloons. Well done.

I also agree wholeheartedly on press releases. They're just so...plaintive when they're trying to impress. When it came time to write one for DOSE, I tried to write something I'd actually want to read, that told the necessary information and was funny (at least to me).

[MRMcDermott]

"Dark Knight Returns" popularized another narrative device I find even more intrusive than the caption: The inset shot of a TV set with a talking-head anchorperson filling in the reader on what the hero has been up to. Sloppy writing can turn that into a talking head relating details about the hero that a TV news operation would never have known.
That has already devolved into inset shots of screaming pundits arguing over the methods used by the main character in advancing the plot, as if that captures the public's conflicting attitude about the hero's actions. I never watch pontificating blowhards telling me what to think, why would I want this as part of my entertainment?

[Steven Grant]

The TV screen talking heads was a core gimmick in AMERICAN FLAGG! whence Frank nicked it. Frank, I find, does it pretty well, though Howard did it better. Like anything else, it has its uses, and, like everything else, is generally overused and used without thinking it through.

- Grant

[Lord Destiny]

We shouldn't blame the artistic device (thought balloons) for what is really poor scripting. Much of the criticism about thought balloons has historically applied to speech balloons as well. Info dumps are info dumps, spoken or thought.

And historically a LOT of speech balloons were filled with nothing more than exposition in the guise of characters talking out loud to themselves.

I miss thought balloons, the same way I miss text boxes. In the 70s, I felt like I was reading a novel story with pictures. Today, everybody wants to make a movie with word balloons. With the former, I often get repetition. With the latter, I'm often left filling in the gaps with my own imagination. Neither is inherently better. Each comes with its upsides and downsides.

[bartl]

The TV screen talking heads was a core gimmick in AMERICAN FLAGG! whence Frank nicked it. Frank, I find, does it pretty well, though Howard did it better. Like anything else, it has its uses, and, like everything else, is generally overused and used without thinking it through.

I recall that Steve Gerber used the technique pretty heavily, but I don't recall whether or not he used it before Chaykin (the only personal documentation I have is a 1990 letter I wrote chiding him for overusing the technique).

[OzBat!]

speaking of Steve Gerber (http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=209137) ...