Comic Book Resources

If you go back and find my review of FF/Iron Man: Big in Japan, you’ll see it’s all Seth Fisher’s sound effects. Very cool stuff. It made a groovy comic even groovier.

I have that Captain America comic, and have read it easily two dozen times. And never one did I notice Cap was a WANK-er.

It also contains one of my favourite lines of dialogue in a comic.

“Annoying gnat, i will crush you!”
“No, but you can try”

There’s a picture of the Joker I just saw online (maybe here on CSBG, maybe at the ISB, I’m not sure) where he’s walking towards you with the sound effects of him laughing are wrapping around him in 3D. I don’t know what comic it’s from – hopefully somebody will remember this and post a link – but it’s one of the coolest looking sound effects I’ve seen.

Off topic: who are all the contributers to this blog?

Fury commands Captain America to wank?

Who wrote that?
Or lettered it?
Someone knew what they were doing when they put that in.

I should have included this in my off topic post.

With sound effects going out of vogue, panel layouts need to make up for it. But when there is a silent action scene (no sound effects), and the panels are uniform (the ‘widescreen,’ every panel goes from page-left to-page-right, or just uniform boxes), the eyes will just gloss over an action scene to the next words. It makes the read much shorter and basically eliminates a chunk of content–it doesn’t matter how Spidey beat up those bad guys, because our eyes will move right to the finish (or past it). It’s bad comic-making.

I can’t think of any examples off of the top of my head here.

I like sound effects, and more so, I like well-crafted layouts.

Simek was the Kirby of Sound-Effects.

Snikt

It is the one sound effect that has most pervaded popular culture and will forever be associated with a particular action. Genius. Simplistic, descriptive. Genius.

Whenever you hear “snikt” or see the word on a page, regardless of what the context is, you know EXACTLY what’s happening.

Sound effects are the best thing ever, and I really don’t like it when comics leave them out. I love the English sound effects with the big chunky colourful letters saying things like ‘KA-BLAM!’ and I also love the Japanese ones, spiky katakana letters, because they have culturally known sounds for undefinable things that don’t even really make a sound, like ’somebody makes a flashy entrance’, ‘ZAAAAA!’ (you will notice, in Scott Pilgrim, when the band appears at the end of vol 2, it even says ‘ZAAAA!’ in english, which I think is rocksome.

No honorable mention of the Gwen Stacy *snap*?

I don’t really like sound effects when they’re over-the-top like in some of the above examples. Also, the Simonson/Workman examples up there seem wrong to me because of the fonts. I dunno, they don’t look like sound effect letters to me.

Sound effects always look great in Japanese, though. That’s one area in which manga has us beat, hands-down.

Well on the one hand you have NOT using the sound effects, on the other hand however..

What I really dislike is people substituting sound effects for stuff they can’t draw. Can’t draw a person walking? that’s okay, just make sure you have a sound effect ready that says “walk walk walk”!
There’s a jar that needs to be opened, but you can’t figure out how the person has to stand? Just juxtapose “TWIST!” over it!
A door opens but the way you draw makes it look like the door hadn’t moved in near to three years? Well just make sure you can write “OPEN” !

Solo Avengers #14. She-Hulk has spent all day corralling Titania, in the midst of her first ever presentation to the Supreme Court. Titania’s kept on escaping, forcing She-Hulk to interrupt herself time and time again. Finally, the Court has adjourned the case, a catastrophic setback for Shulkie’s client (and legal career.) As she’s walking out of the courtroom, Titania hits her over the head with a car. She-Hulk turns to Titania, growls…

And what follows is just a full page of sound effects. Followed by a beat-up Titania explaining that she’s very sorry, she promises to go back to jail and behave like a good girl, and that she really didn’t mean to be any trouble at all.

Excellent work from Chris Claremont.

My favourite has to be from Transformers: Generation 2 issue 1 by Simon Furman and Richard Starkings and is split over two panels – BA-THROOM!

Pffh. That same sound effect is much better used in Alan Davis’ run on Excalibur, where the Technet accidentally blow up the only toilet in the lighthouse that the team uses as a head-quarters. The “Ba-THROOM!” sound effect is perfectly used there.

(Oh, and as an honorable mention, just because I’m a sucker for a Doctor Who reference, in FF #322-324, featuring Kang the Conqueror, Kang’s energy blast shoots out with the sound effect of, “TARDIS!”)

I’ve always been partial to Bamf and Zark.

Aside from maybe ‘BAMF!’ my favorite non-Simonson sound effect is ‘FAARP!’ From a Barry Windsor-Smith Thing vs. Human Torch story, it’s the sound a balloon shooting across a room, but it comes from behind the Thing, so that’s what you hope it is…

Tyson: I think I know the Joker panel you’re talking about, and it was from the Engelhart/Rogers run of Detective in the 1970s. Rogers was up there with Simonson using sound effects.

I’m very surprised the article doesn’t mention what I thought everyone regarded as the high point of sound effects as design element: Chaykin and Bruzenak’s work on American Flagg. Really, if you haven’t seen it, you have to go out and find the first twelve issues (subsequented collected in 3 or 4 books). They’re amazing.

Rats, John Seavey beat me to it. That “Ba-THROOM” in Excalibur (I think it was #42) literally made me do a double-take, and I’ll remember it forever.

Cerebus also had some great sound effects, both onomatopoeic and non-, if I recall correctly.

Rob M beat me to it but:

BRUZENAK!

Somebody FINALLY mentioned American Flagg, thank God. That was awesome. Especially the buildup in the first or second issue, whatever it was — guns that go MOW, bombs going off with a muffled OOM, motors stuttering PAPAPAW…. and then it’s all on the same page, PAPA OOM MOW MOW. Which, for those younguns that might not know, are the first words of “Surfin’ Bird.” Genius.

We spend a day in cartooning class on sound effects. You’d be amazed how hard it is to persuade the kids to not use POW or BAM and make up their own, but once they do, there’s no stopping them.

Ummm guys… “THWIP”. Thats my favorite sound effect.

I’m recalling one of John Byrne’s issues of Fantastic Four when the Thing gets hit through the wall and the action is inside the sound effect. I’ve only ever seen it out of context of the comic, but its stuck in my head every since.

Yeah, say what you will about the man personally, but Dave Sim is a master of the sound effect and really used it well in Cerebus not just to get sound info across, but also for a lot of humor.

I also enjoy any use of Ba-throom. I saw it used again recently, but I can’t remember where. Bamf and Skint are also classics, classic enough that the sounds had to be acuratly reproduced for the movies, and fortunatly were.

As great as a letterer as Workman is, I think I’ve read somewhere that Walt draws his own sound effects.

My personal favorite is the “THUF” from the end of Green Arrow 101.

Mary Marvel’s pimp slapping “smek”.

You just can’t beat Don Martin in this department: http://www.collectmad.com/madcoversite/dmd-alphabetical.html

And who can forget Beta Ray Bill’s transformation into Beta Ray Thor: BADA BOOM!

And Surtur beating on the Sword of Twilight: KRAKA-DOOM!

But my all time favorite is from Manhunter: KLIK SNAK RATCHET RATCHET

I enjoyed Neal Adams’ nod to another illustrator in a GL/GA story — KaLOOTa!

In addition to the ones mentioned, there was Scourge’s ‘pum-spak’.

I remember a letter to Dragon magazine once where some guy mentioned he had the perfect way of naming a barbarian character–just name him after the sound his weapon makes when it hits someone: Thug, Smush, Bamboosh. The Dragon editors responded, “That’s nice. (Bamboosh?)” One of the players in my game would certainly have named such a barbarian character ‘Kateesh’.

And let’s not forget the Green Arrow villain Onomatopoeia in this context.

This is definitely something to love about comics. The sound effects are one of those things that make a comic so uniquely a comic.

One of my classic favorites is the helicopter sound:

WHUPPA-WHUPPA-WHUPPA-WHUPPA

Speaking of Captain America, I just read the Winter Soldier TPB and noticed that at one point, the Captain catches his shield to the sound effect of, “FAP!”

So we’ve got Wank! and Fap!

That Captain is a dirty, dirty boy.

Heckler #4, where the villain is taken to the hospital on every right-hand page (it’s a very Road Runner/Coyote style story.) At first, the ambulance is going, “Oo-EE!”, then the next time it goes, “Oo-A-A!”…then the next time it goes, “Ting-tang!”, and finally “walla-walla-bing-bang!”

Fine, fine sound FX work from Keith Giffen.

For my contribution, I present a hilarious digression from one of Eric Engelhard’s generally hilarious Spidey Super Stories reviews:

You would think that in the post-Batman tv series world of the mid-70s, they’d know a little something about good sound effects. I swear, if I were writing comics then instead of not even being a gleam in my mother’s eye, I would put ZAP! POW! KAZOOIE! like four times in every panel.

But no, here he slips, (SLIP!) and bumps into something (BUMP!). I can see where this is going to lead. One day Spidey’s grilling bratwurst (Mr. Sound Effect: GRILL!) for the poor neighborhood kids (Mr. Sound Effect: POVERTY!), when the Vulture attacks (Mr. Sound Effect: ATTACK!) and Mary Jane runs away (Mr. Sound Effect: FLEE!).

Best. Sound Effect. Ever: Swamp Thing 7. Batman picking a lock: “Pik. Pik. Pik. Unlok!”

I’m with joecab, Don Martin was THE sound effects master.

From Amazing Spider-Man #38, “Just a Guy Named Joe!”…

KLAK! THUP! CRAKK! BIK! THOK! THOOM! BRAK! FTOP! BTAK! FTAK! BUTOOP! KAPOWK! FOOM! (Yes, FOOM) SZAK! BOK! THWIK! THAK! BRUP! KLIP!

You guys reminded me of “Don Martin’s Guide to Some Very Obscure Comics Sound Effects”, from MAD Magazine!

Some selected highlights (unfortunately without Don Martin’s excellent art):

“McPwaf”: Superman trying to catch a safe loaded with Kryptonite.

“Snap–Ploobadoof”: Wonder Woman releasing her Amazon brassiere.

“Thiz-ziz-ziz-ziz”: Spider-Man’s secret web fluid backfiring.

“Skwappo”: The Silver Surfer wiping out on a meteor.

“Geeen”: Plastic Man giving a guy on the 32nd floor the finger.

And finally,

“Arrarghnnarrgh”: An entire dialogue script for the Hulk.

I also like Martin’s “The Sounds of Captain Klutz”, especially the sound of Captain Klutz rescuing a woman tied to some railroad tracks with a train on its way.

klikity-klak.
klikity-klak.
klikity-klak.
klikity-klak.
*sphlikity-sphlak*

Ah, lots of fine memories aith that Don Martin stuff–he was the king of comic sound effects–the superhero ones once came in a Mad Special as stickers…

I think the “KRAKOW” laser hits from Spaceman Spiff are pretty good. There are some good sound effects in that new Iron Fist comic to name a recent one, especially when the panel itself transforms into the sound effect: http://www.the-isb.com/images/KICK-IronFist06.jpg