Speech Bubble Types in Comics: Every Kind, What It Means and Where to Put It

• Speech bubbleNormal talking. An oval (or rounded rectangle) with a tail pointing at the speaker's mouth. The default for almost everything.
• Thought bubbleWhat a character is thinking. A cloud with a trail of shrinking circles instead of a tail. Many modern comics use a caption box for thoughts instead.
• Shout / scream bubbleYelling, panic or a battle cry. A spiky burst with jagged edges. Make the lettering bigger and bold.
• Whisper bubbleQuiet speech. A dashed or dotted outline, often with smaller, lighter lettering.
• Electronic / radio bubbleVoices from a phone, radio, TV, robot or speaker. A zigzag lightning tail, and sometimes a square or wobbly outline.
• Off-panel bubbleSomeone speaking who isn't in the panel. The tail points to the panel edge, toward where they are.
• Caption boxNarration, time and place ('Meanwhile…'), or a character's inner voice. A rectangle, often coloured, usually at the top of a panel. No tail.
• Connected bubblesOne speaker, two beats: a pause in the middle of what they're saying. Two bubbles joined by a short neck.
• Weak / trembling bubbleSomeone hurt, cold, scared or exhausted. A wobbly outline and shaky, smaller lettering.

1. Follow reading order. In English comics the first bubble goes top-left and the last bottom-right. In manga, which reads right to left, the first bubble goes top-right.
2. The first speaker goes on the left (on the right in manga). Plan this when you draw the panel, not afterwards, or the tails will have to cross.
3. Never cover faces or hands. Put bubbles in empty space: sky, walls, the top of the panel. Leave room for them when drawing.
4. Point tails at the mouth, stopping short of it. Tails should never cross each other.
5. Keep it short. About 25 words per bubble and two or three bubbles per panel is a comfortable maximum. Split long speeches across panels.
6. Leave breathing room between the text and the edge of the bubble: roughly the height of one capital letter.

Panelo places bubbles automatically: it finds the faces in each panel and puts the bubble in the clearest space beside the speaker, then you can drag it or its tail anywhere.

• Western comics are traditionally lettered in ALL CAPS, with bold italic for emphasis. A comic font is easier to read than a typewriter font at small sizes.
• Manga translations often use sentence case and taller, narrower bubbles, a leftover from vertical Japanese text.
• Webtoons need bigger text than print: at least 22 to 26 px tall on an 800 px wide strip, because people read on phones.
• Shape the text block like a diamond or a lemon (short line, longer lines, short line) so it fits an oval naturally.

Use our free speech bubble maker to put any of these bubbles on a photo or drawing: drag the bubble, drag the tail, type the text and download a PNG. It runs in your browser, so your image is never uploaded. For whole pages, Panelo letters every bubble for you.