Onomatopoeia in Comics

On the A-Human Theatre of Expression in Graphic Representations

Abstract

When we think about comics, graphic novels or even just Japanese manga, big, pointy words – like pow, swooshand sob –come to mind. These onomatopoeia, also known in German as bang words (Peng-Wörter), augment the emotions felt by the characters and depict the intensity of the character’s state or the situation in general. […] In this contribution, I would like to examine to which extent these semi-words or letters do not just bear a notion of meaning, be it semantic or emotional, but are also able to grasp human expression in a theatrical mode of writing.