I’ve always liked speech bubbles (thought bubbles, too, you are not forgotten!). It comes under a category of shapes that aren’t exactly circles, triangles or squares but are immediately recognisable when shown to people, even kids.

It’s my favourite shape to draw. Friends who have received greeting cards from me must have seen it as I like to contain my well wishes in these useful containers (I’m still referring to speech bubbles btw [who still spells out 'by the way' nowadays, btw?]).

Speech bubbles are like the extroverts. They are outspoken and sharp. Thought bubbles, on the other hand, are the introverts. They are disconnected and yet their presence can be felt and seen.

They are better than normal bathroom bubbles in so many ways. Firstly, the arrow of the speech bubble can be used to break a liquid bubble.

These speech bubbles have come a long way to evolve to what they look like today. In the past (around 13th century), before speech bubbles were used, people used to depict speech in bands, flags, scrolls or sheets of paper.

For those who aren’t aware of this practice, they may think that the guy (in picture below, on the right) is magically spitting out endless supply of toilet paper with text on it.

Hundreds of years later, in around 18th century, speech bubbles began appearing in several political cartoons from the American Revolution and printed broadsides. Their shapes started to resemble the modern day speech bubbles that we use now.

(I’m not going to give a detail history lesson about Chapter X: Speech Bubbles at this point but you can read a little more about it at wikipedia [how did the I survive 18 years without this?!] and find out some of the information and pictures here were stolen from that wiki article)

Speech bubbles are so cool because they are not even shapes that you need to explain or really give a name for. People just know what it means.

But of course there are informal guidelines (not really rules, you see) and principles to look out for when you use speech bubbles in your comic drawing. Like how you cannot draw a speech bubble and drink bubble tea at the same time because you will choke to death slowly.

Why is that so? What other rules are there? Read more about them here.

Have you read? I bet you must have searched up and down the web page I linked up to for that piece of bullshit information I typed above. I was just kidding. But the pointers highlighted in that page are rather useful though.

Will be doing some major revamp and additions to my website very soon. Watch out this space!

… that Mr Bean’s Soya Bean Ice-Cream + Roti Prata = Awesomeness.

… that Dropbox is one of the best free apps (who still spells ‘applications’ nowadays?) ever. It has made sync-ing (and the word ’synchronising’ too) and sharing large amount of data across  computers so much easier and pleasurable. Why haven’t you started using dropbox too?

… that Gindaco @ Ion has the BEST TAKOYAKI IN TOWN. Seriously. It is so nice all over, a baby can probably learn to spell n-i-c-e after eating it. Like what ahdui from headphonehaven describes, it is “Crispy on the outside, moist in the inside with a rather decent cut of octopus meat, accompanied with the right amount of okonomiyaki sauce, mayonnaise and katsuobushi. *orgasmic*”

… that the food court at Cineleisure sells biáng biáng noodles! Haven’t tried it though. The Chinese word biáng is made up of 57 strokes, and is one of the most complex Chinese characters in contemporary usage.

… that I just watched two Asian movies (one from China, one from Taiwan) about dreams and passion.

Hear Me is good. It’s the kind of movie that makes you feel warm and happy inside. It reminds me of Cape No. 7. It explores themes such as sibling love and overcoming obstacles (in this case, being deaf) to achieve something in life. It’s a movie that requires a bit of patience and effort from the audience to read the subtitles as most of the dialogues are presented in sign language, but the sincere performance and much-welcomed comic timing of some supporting casts eventually makes you forget about the read and draws you intothe enjoyable light-hearted story. The female lead, Ivy Chen, is so cute! =D

8.5 / 10

The only obvious evidence of Stephen Chow’s involvement in the comedy Jump is during the opening credits, when it said ‘Stephen Chow presents’. However, I couldn’t help but feel the whole movie has his signature ‘Mo Lei Tau’ style stamped all over. It’s a straightforward story about a village girl who enters a modern city to learn how to dance. She encounters quite a fair bit of obstacles along the way but eventually manages to impress the right people with her gung-ho attitude towards dancing. It’s quite entertaining and well-shot, but you can’t help but feel empty when the credits start rolling and wondering why the movie didn’t have more dance sequences.

7 / 10