But it is important to remember how thought balloons started. In the early days of comic strips, thoughts did not have their own identifying shape. They were presented in regular speech balloons, but with (THINKS) in front of the dialog. Clumsy, to say the least. And eventually this gave way to the forms we know now -- but the name stayed the same.

It's probably a loosing battle. Civilians call speech balloons AND thought balloons "bubbles," and civilians have a way of winning arguments like this. There are more of them!! But I will cling to the proper terminology. After all, if I was talking football with someone, and I called the players headgear "caps," shouldn't I expect to be corrected?

As long as we're on this road, also remember that the individual pictures are called "panels," not "frames." The spaces between them are called "gutters." The first page of the comic is the "splash," unless it has more than one big panel. Then it's a "multi-panel splash." If it's one big panel anywhere other than on the first page, it's called a "full page splash." Two of them presenting a single image is a "double-page spread" -- tho this can also apply to multiple panels that cross the center.

Technically, "graphic novel" refers to format, not content. People have applied some snobbery to the term, but, as Marvel proved in the early days of the format (almost discrediting it entirely) being square-bound is not an automatic indication of superior content.

And, by the way, only ennui-engorged idiots call the books "floppies".

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How about fries that leave the skin on the potato because that's "healthier"?

Well, yeah, keeping the skin on traps the Good Stuff in potatoes inside -- if you're boiling or baking or in some way cooking them that doesn't break the skin. But fries?

And anyway, everybody knows they're called "chips"? ;)