CBR

  • What we think of as word balloons first began as 'speechbands' in the 15th Century. 1 / 9

  • In the mid-1700s, editorial cartoons briefly used word balloons. They lost popularity by the 1800s. 2 / 9

  • In the 1890s, Richard Outcault debuted the Yellow Kid, who had dialogue on his shirt. 3 / 9

  • Outcault, though, also used word balloons a little bit in his popular strip. 4 / 9

  • Rudolph Dirks, though, took things further in his Katzenjammer Kids comic strip. 5 / 9

  • Dirks introduced the idea of having thought balloons be like clouds rather than balloons. 6 / 9

  • In Outcault's early 1900s work, like Buster Brown, word balloons were now a constant. 7 / 9

  • Soon, most comics, like Little Nemo in Slumberland, used word balloons. 8 / 9

  • Word balloons have been a constant in comic strips and comic books ever since. 9 / 9