“Grawlixes”: More than just a euphemistic way to $*%@&! in comics
The strange life and theory of emanata in comics art
I distinctly remember being about eight years old and reading a set of panels in Asterix and the Goths which absolutely blew my mind.
In one panel, the druid Getafix, who has been kidnapped and bound like a package is required to be unpacked for inspection by a customs official at the village of his captors. When he is uncovered, he makes his displeasure at his treatment by cursing profusely. The curses takes the form of symbols that include an aggressive swiggle, a skull and cross bones, a glyph that looks like an angry red eye, a splatter, a loose tooth, a radiating spiral and a “plink” logoform (that looks somewhat like a drop of water exploding or an asterisk). An explanatory textbox says: “Gaulish swearwords which we decline to translate”.
The term “grawlix” is used to refer to these sorts of typographical symbols (such as @#$%&!) in cartoons and comic strips to represent swearing. The term is the pure invention of the American comic artist Mort Walker (creator of Beetle Bailey). It initially started as a joke. Walker first used the made-up word in his article “Let’s Get Down to Grawlixes” (1964) and then revisited and expanded on the idea in his book The Lexicon of Comicana (1980)…
