Posted: 16 August 2018 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | 7
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There have been a couple of different situations.
In comic strips, the grawlix was used to show cursing or intense. In addition, a large black cloud in word bubbles or possibly scribbling was used. It seems to me that this was most often in funny strips more than dramatic, or in a humorous moment.
This obviously carried over to comic books, and as far as I know was prevalent throughout the Golden Age.
In the Silver Age, there started a trend - one I particularly noticed with Ben Grimm and Nick Fury - where pseudo gibberish* replaced the grawlix. "Git off yer butts and git a move on, ya no-good goldbrickin' shoe polishin' tin horns!" or "What the blankety-blank kinda gizmo is that, Stretcho?" This seemed to occur more at Marvel than at DC.
Then - slowly, a little cursing started slipping in. "Darn", "Heck", and "God" appeared. As the language restrictions eased somewhat in colloquial conversation, so did they in comic speech. I personally felt that this was as far as it should go in comic books... but once that first snow ball starts down the hill, it's hard to stop.
A bit later, we started seeing "Damned", "Christ", and "Hell" showing up with frequency. (Having Ghost Rider and Son of Satan kinda made it inevitable.) And as comics started getting edgier, we started seeing the Seven Words that Must Not Be Said on Television. I'm not sure of the last time I saw a grawlix in a book.
Sergio, I'm with you in that most of that language could easily be omitted in all age books. It's still all over television, movies, popular periodicals, and general conversation. But at least it's a try in the right arena to try keeping it away from kids.
* Actually, it was authentic frontier gibberish. Harrumph.
Edited by Eric Sofer on 16 August 2018 at 5:29pm
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