Weekend Comics! Dummo Mouse and Stan Lee Word Balloons
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Reading some episodes of my older brother’s unfinished Dummo Mouse cartoons is almost like reading an old Silver Age Marvel comic book written by Stan Lee. Comic readers today sometimes mock Stan Lee for his (from their point of view) overuse of narration and dialogue. To them, the giant word balloons get in the way of the pictures (and action) and make reading feel like a slog. To a reader like me who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, the word balloons provided more value, giving us more to read and making the comic reading experience worth it (reading a comic book fully could take 20-30 minutes).
My brother, who bought a lot of that Silver Age stuff when it came out, sometimes used a lot of word balloons in his own comic strips. Maybe these word balloons get in the way of the illustrations. Maybe, but they also provide key information and characterization. If I have a choice, I usually choose a comic book or comic strip that overuses rather than underuses word balloons. Yeah, that’s a false binary, but you know what I mean.
With that in mind, go ahead and keep reading my older brother’s unfinished, unpublished Dummo Mouse comic strip from the 1980s.
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Looking back, I think my older brother used the right variety of word balloons, but what do you think?
What would you you rather have? A lot of word balloons? Very few word balloons? Do you talk when you fight? Or do you talk to try to deescalate and avoid the fight? That’s… probably the best way to handle it. Stan Lee didn’t write too many of those. I don’t think Deescalation Comics would have sold many copies.
For more stuff about Dummo Mouse and/or Stan Lee (and sometimes fewer word balloons), see..
Comic Sunday: Dummo Mouse and Friend(s)
Dummo Mouse and the Daily Strip
Dysfunctional Literacy 