Quote:
Originally Posted by Joykins
- I've read some books that used dashes instead of punctuation - she says - I never really understood why an author would do that. Perhaps they feel ordinary punctuation is beneath them? I personally find it distracting. -
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To me, dashes (-) are way to indicate thoughts in the same way that quotation marks can be used to denote speech. I don't find either distracting as long as they are used consistently. Inconsistent usage
is distracting.
In a related note, a recent change in comics I've noticed is the use of color-coded boxes to indicate when a character is speaking when he/she is not seen or when the character is thinking. The use of the old-fashioned "bubble balloons" to indicate what a character is thinking are less used.
In one scene in the miniseries "Identity Crisis," there are five characters speaking and none of them appear on page, yet the color coding of the text boxes clearly indicate who is speaking (example: Green Arrow's boxes are all white text in a green box, while Elongated Man's are black text in a orange box). Throughout the miniseries the same convention is followed, including color coding for scene changes and the narrator's comments. It improves the readability of the issue was not interfering with the artwork.