Bubbles and Balloons

[dancj]

The most recent Byrne brushfire arose from a conversation on his chat board (http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum) about whether the things on comics pages that hold the dialogue and point to the speakers are word balloons or word bubbles (John's right on that one; it's balloons, and I've never heard anyone in the business ever call them "word bubbles," so let's not bother reinventing the wheel, okay?)

I'm not convinced it's that clear cut. If you ask anyone in England what they're called they'll say they're "speech bubbles", and they'll wonder what "word balloons" are. No-one says "word bubbles", but beyond that I think it's just down to which side of the Atlantic you're on

[Sleeper]

I've heard often on the use of thought bubbles and speech balloons. Never really did see them interchange often if ever. Never heard word bubbles either.

[Inkthinker]

I think it's irrelevant what you call them... either way, a moderately intelligent person ought to be able to understand what you're talking about whether it's "bubbles" or "balloons".

So far as I can recall, I've used both terms interchangeably.