What do you tend to use in your comics for sound effects? I've noticed a lot of artists don't even give them a second thought and leave their comics in silence.

When you do use sound effects, do you make up some super word to describe your sound (ex: Dav Pikley with Captain Underpants)? Do you write out the verbs (the word crash for crashing)?

Sound can be pretty important in comics since it is a strictly visual media. What are your thoughts and practices??

Oo, I've got a whole bunch of fonts I downloaded to sort of match the proper onomatopoeia I've chosen for any potential sound effect, the problem is when it comes to using them I find out they aren't always what I wanted!

I like to make up sound effects myself, though every once in a while I'll fall back on the old standards or maybe just use an "unsound effect" as tvtropes would call it, but usually that's in goofy situations. Except "grab", I have used that one a lot...then again, there aren't too many serious moments in my comic either so it doesn't matter!

The only real problem I have with SFX is where to put them half the time, and what effects to apply to them, making them legible etcetera, etcetera (what's this then? Firefox is telling me I spelled "etcetera" wrong, just because everyone else is too lazy to type it out?! "etc" indeed! What nonsense!)
Anyway, back to subject at hand!

There's some sounds I'm not sure how to reproduce in text form. Like the sound of someone digging through dirt. I once saw in a comic a fantastic noise for someone coming out of the bushes, but I forgot what it was by the time I needed a sound like that. I do find looking how how foreign languages do sound effects quite helpful, especially when I don't want to use stupid words that don't even sound like what they represent!

Personally, I'm a fan of sound effects. Maybe because I was a Don Martin fan, and his sound effects were always unique and somehow you could always hear exactly what he was going for just by looking at the comic. Like here: a dictionary of Don Martin sound effects from MAD magazine! Some of them repeat and of course they're always better with the pictures that accompanied them, though... and I also liked the creative sound effects in Rob Schrab's Scud the Disposable Assassin.
But yeah, I think especially if you're doing a particularly action oriented comic, sound effects are as important as your dialogue. I feel that the only time they are out of place is when you're doing a completely silent comic. Or something really artsy I suppose...

Amelius
(what's this then? Firefox is telling me I spelled "etcetera" wrong, just because everyone else is too lazy to type it out?! "etc" indeed! What nonsense!)

I think maybe Firefox just wanted you to separate the words: et cetera. :P



I think I have a 'use on demand' relationship with SX and mostly when I write them I create my own.very rarely do I try to use a font rather than my handwriting variations, but this may change when I start on Coven where I will type the words.

I think maybe Firefox just wanted you to separate the words: et cetera. :P
Hehe, nope, 'cuz it just told me that's wrong too! (though I did consult the dictionary when I spelled it the first time however!) but I've noticed more and more that Firefox's lexicon is rather...finite, I suppose. It hates contractions too, one time it was throwing a fit over "don't" and "can't". I guess it wanted me to think positive or something! :) It bothers me only when I'm trying to spell a word and I can't recall how, so I try my best shot thinking that the 'fox will suggest it, and its suggestions aren't even close!

Anyhows, back on topic! I also tried drawing up my own sound effects, but then they sat unused forever...mayhaps I should try again if I'm not finding the right fonts to suit my tastes! I just wish my handwriting wasn't so miserably bad! (seriously I can't even read my own notes to myself, and all my lowercase r's look like v's!)
I also wish font making programs were cheaper...that would be nice. :)

I use sound effects. And I love the "hmmm, how would this sound?" game. lol! Although I probably wouldn't if my comic was more serious or in a more realistic style, though.

I think it's easier to draw them as if they're part of the image- but then again I hand-letter (quite sloppily); I think it's a bit different and a bit trickier if you're usin' fonts.

There's a risk of overdoing it, though. For example, when people use things like "turn!" when a character's meant to be doing that, instead of using action lines, or drawing the figure in a way that would connote the action without words.

Amelius
It hates contractions too,

It'll need an epidural when it's due then...

Silly punnin' :)

Yes, Firefox's spellchecker is limited. When I have trouble with a word I turn to Google instead.
Speaking of contractions, Firefox's spellchecker suggested "Firebox's" when I typed "Firefox's" T__T

------------
I have fun making up my own sounds. Sometimes accepted sound effects will work better, but I'd really rather use my own if I can. It's like when I do my writing, I don't like to use accepted phrasing for things... e.g. Pinky TA is an action comic so typical phrasings for things might be "lock and load", "incoming!" etc.
But that sort thing makes me feel sick at the triteness of it...

My reaction to common sound effects isn't that extreme, but if I'm to have them at all, I'd rather do something less common and more descriptive of the sound than just representative or symbolic.
Visually there's a lot you can do to make them part of the panel- an explosion sound can BE a part of the explosion. Or you can just make the text the same colour so while it sounds like the event, it's also a graphic art, textual design element counterpart to it...

You can also alter the fots to increase the sound effect feeling- like with heavy thuds I find it good to copy the effect and lay it over itself, making them both transparent but rotating one or moving it to one side slightly so it looks like a blur effect from being subjected to force.
You can jumble letters, reshape them, break them all up, add spikes... But even playing with outlines does interesting things, depending on what you do.
When you have a good vector editing program like Illustrator you can do a hell of a lot. :)

I love making sound effects. My favorite one is SPLORTCH!

I try and come up with my own, but sometimes I use old standbys.

I don't have Illustrator, but you can do a decent job of tweaking the fonts in Photoshop. Adding sound effects is probably one of my favorite things to do.

I usually don't do descriptive effects, but if I have a page like this past weeks where there is maybe too much going on, I will use it.

Actually, if I go back and read my comic I"ll probably find a bunch of descriptive sound effects. :)

I often don't bother with them. They can clutter up the page if you aren't careful with them. Also, if one is writing and drawing a dramatic series the presence of sound effects can be counter-intuitive.

I occasionally use them when I'm working with comedic material though. I tend to just draw them onto the panel while I'm doing the lineart. Most sound effects are directly tied to the actions of the story and I find a digital font too rigid to work for me.

For example, let's say that your title protagonist is a heavyweight boxer. Let's say that you have a panel where he's punching a guy. You frame it at an angle where he's uppercutting in a sort of diagonal movement. From the bottom left of the panel to the top right.

Me, I would want the "Pow" sound effect to be traveling in the same direction and angle as the boxer's arm. I find it much easier to draw that into the frame rather than try to have the digital font do such a thing afterwards.

For the most part, I try to make sound effects a part of the artwork itself.

Air Raid Robertson
For the most part, I try to make sound effects a part of the artwork itself.

Which you should always try to do, no matter how you try to achieve that.

But then the more design oriented aspects of the comic page- speech baubles, speech text, panel borders- are just as much a part of the final artwork as anything you might draw, so text that looks like text, as sound effects, is not out of place if done right.

-I think about that sort of stuff since graphic design is my job these days...

Splash Damage
What do you tend to use in your comics for sound effects? I've noticed a lot of artists don't even give them a second thought and leave their comics in silence.

When you do use sound effects, do you make up some super word to describe your sound (ex: Dav Pikley with Captain Underpants)? Do you write out the verbs (the word crash for crashing)?

Sound can be pretty important in comics since it is a strictly visual media. What are your thoughts and practices??

sound effects are so precious...and i mean that in a good way. there has always been a movement to restrict or get rid of the more "comic book-y" things in comic books...like hal fosters use of type and dismissal of word balloons in prince valiant.

I love sound effects. i use them. its something ONLY comics can do.

I like well-done sound effects, you know you just register them enough to get the sound and not have to pause from the story and go 'whut a moran' like if they used 'OMGWTFBBG' as an sfx. But then i liked quitely sfx in batman and robin which totally make you pause, but in a good way.

...oh uh I use them sometimes during panels where the art doesn't speak for itself, i tend to not use vowells SKRSSH CRSHH GRRRRR LSBNSX

I tend to put a lot of sound effects in my script but, by the time I come to add the lettering to the finished artwork, I usually cut a lot of them out!

In general, though, I think sound effects are just as important a part of the comic as the images, the dialogue and the word balloons. If you deny yourself the use of them completely (as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons did in Watchmen, for example) then you're not using all the tools at your disposal. It's like saying, I want to write a novel but I won't use any capital letters or full stops. Sound effects do add to the comic experience and should be used whenever they can convey something that isn't represented in any other way.

On the other hand, the trend to describe actions as if they were sounds ("grab", "turn", etc) seems fairly pointless to me. It should be clear from the image that the character is grabbing or turning and so the addition of the word is redundant.

Hmm, I rarely bother with them, even if they are in the script. When I do them it's usually one of the two reasons.

1) I think there's not enough to "read" on the page so I add some sounds.

2) I'm not entirely sure if the action is clear enough without them.

I don't really care about reading them myself though and I mostly glance them over. I even prefer when they keep the original ones in mangas as they compose better with art (and become abstract representation of sound)... UNLESS the sound effect is NEEDED to understand the panel (for example pulling out from the house and you only get a sound of what happened inside, then you need to know what is says there).

I like to use (and see) sound effects every so often, although when illustrating sometimes I worry that people wouldn't read the sound the same way I might phonetically hear it.

It seems whenever someone wants their comic to feel "serious", "relevant" or "meaningful" the first thing they do is axe the sound effects, as if they are an inherently childish part of comics-making. So, as the average comics reader gets older and older, it seems sound effects are going the way of thought baloons (does anybody still use those?)
The thing with sound effects is that you have to strike a balance. If you use them too scarcely, when one does appear it stands out like a sore thumb and generally feels out of place. But if you use them too much the comic becomes visually cluttered and feels noisy, like you are trying to read in a construction site.

I'm actually pretty well known for my sound effects.

Sound effects are especially important. I tend to switch it up, like, sometimes I do the actual sound effect, or I'll write out like, the action. Like, "LEAP!"

But I draw all of my sound effects by hand. I try to do them in a graffiti style, too. I don't know why, it just looks cool, and I always have.

I'll add sound effects when it feels appropriate to me, otherwise I'll leave 'em out. I'll admit to using unsound effects too, (I like using "Open!" for a door opening.) Like some of you have pointed out I'm more likely to use sound effects in more comedic scenarios-- I actually didn't notice before but it's true. I do like using sound effects as a way of playing with different lettering styles as well.

My favorite that I ever used was for a car accident:

BAM!!

CRASH!!!

STUFF!!!!

i ussually like to use em more with action scenes becuase it can add a good accent to it.i'm a ig fan of sound FX,not just in comics but in movies too. a sound effect feeds your ears while your eyes are being fed,though i suppose it's trickier in comics cuase you cant actually hear it. that's why i dont really like that sound effects that just name the sound like "hit" or "running" becuase it's to distracting to me and sometimes when it's used, it makes me think the artist might not of known how to portray the action that's happening well enough for people to figure out what happened,so they have to explain it in the sound effects,it just seems taky sometimes. i apply sound FX like how they'd sound in my head. "THONK!" "KTUNK!""ratatat!ratatatatatatatatat!" though i'd love to be able to put them on the page more creativly,like Ozone mentioned.

i dont think i even conciously think about putting in SFX or not , its like if i'm making that sound or hear it in my head then HWAMM its down on the page , unless i already drew stuff there

Yikes, I've haven't thought about sound effects in this much depth before. Good topic. I stick to pretty standard ones: 'Crash!' etc. But I might try branching out more now.

Does anyone use SFX for pacing? You know..
Bif. Pow. Zap.
BIFF! pooOOOoow. Zp.
patterPATTERdripDRIPpatterDRIP! patterPATTERpatterDROP!
.... or something. (This isn't coming from the world's biggest user of SFX).

Hand-drawing sound effects sounds like a good idea... might help me to integrate them into my pages more. Sound effects are difficult for me, but I prefer that challenge over keeping my pages silent. Without them, the environment seems flatter.


I've never used smell or taste sound effects though..

I put some subtle sound effects here and there. I suck ass at imitating noises, though. For the longest time, I made my cows dyslexic. Oom.

Blambots has a cool free sheet you can download off their website. Has some really dynamic word effects.

I very rarely use sound effects in my comic. I find them distracting when i read comics, at least for incidental actions, or when the action that makes the sound is conveyed by the art. If you've gone to the effort of drawing a car crashing into a river it seems a little redundant to write 'SPLASH' in big blue letters over it.

So in my opinion they're a tool to be used sparingly, when the sound itself is the focus.

Also templates are neat and all but sound effects are so situational that you're better of drawing them yourself.

Amelius
There's some sounds I'm not sure how to reproduce in text form. Like the sound of someone digging through dirt

I think a nice, vowel-less "scrnch" might work there. ^_^

Hey, that's a good idea for a thread- "What sound effect should I use here?" - I would love to see all the different suggestions for things. :)

I don't really think too much aout sound effects, if I know how something sounds I sort of already know how to write it lol. I do use 'crash' but I also make up my own like 'chhk chhk' for a key turning in a lock.