Semantics of Line Drawings

Jocelyn Ireson-Paine

www.j-paine.org/lds/intro.html

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Especially in cartoons, some lines act as symbols (2)

Examples, from the list in Wikipedia's "The Lexicon of Comicana":

• Agitrons: wiggly lines around a shaking object or character.
• Blurgits, swalloops: curved lines preceding or trailing after a character's moving limbs.
• Briffits: clouds of dust that hang in the spot of a swiftly departing character or object.
• Dites: diagonal, straight lines drawn across flat, clear and reflective surfaces, such as windows and mirrors.
• Emanata: lines drawn around the head to indicate shock or surprise.
• Grawlixes: typographical symbols standing for profanities, appearing in dialogue balloons in place of actual dialogue.
• Hites: horizontal straight lines trailing after something moving with great speed; or, drawn on something indicating reflectivity (puddle, glass, mirror).
• Indotherm: wavy, rising lines used to represent steam or heat; when the same shape is used to denote smell, it is called a wafteron.
• Lucaflect: a shiny spot on a surface of something, depicted as a four-paned window shape.
• Plewds: flying sweat droplets that appear around a character's head when working hard, stressed, etc.
• Quimps: planets resembling Saturn to omit obscenities
• Solrads: radiating lines drawn from something luminous like a lightbulb or the sun.
• Squeans: little starbursts or circles that signify intoxication, dizziness or sickness.
• Vites: vertical straight lines indicating reflectivity (compare dites, hites).