Bubbles & Sound Effects
📋 What it is
Speech bubbles show who’s talking and how; sound effects (drawn words like “BOOM”) add noise and impact to a silent page.
🗣️ Coach says
A page can’t make noise — so manga draws it. Speech bubbles show WHO speaks and HOW (a spiky bubble = shouting); big drawn sound effects like “BOOM” or “whoosh” add impact and let the reader “hear” the scene.
🧠 Memory hook
Bubbles = who + how they speak. Drawn “BOOM” = sound you can see.
😂 Giggle
What did the inker say to the pencil sketch?
"Don't worry — I've got you covered."
😲 Whoa!
Manga has hundreds of sound-effect words — even for silence itself, drawn as “…” to show a quiet, tense pause.
✅ Quick check: How do manga artists let a silent page feel full of sound?
Say your answer out loud first — then reveal.
With drawn sound effects (like “BOOM” or “whoosh”) and speech bubbles whose shape shows how a character speaks (a spiky bubble = shouting).
Sound-as-drawing is a signature manga storytelling tool.
🧪 Try it! (2 minutes)
Think of an action and “draw” its sound effect word (a crash? a whoosh?).