Programming with Grawlixes
Marc van Elburg has sent along a paper he’s written about “grawlixes,” which are the random symbols used often in comics to omit profanity, like $#!+! You can read his […]
Vocab gaps
This interesting and quite fun essay/post reviews the book Reading Comics and ponders the definition of “comics” and some other terminological issues. Its biggest query is ‘what is the word […]
Dunkin’ pictograms
Speaking of pictographic writing systems that will never be universal, Fabricari sends along this logo from Dunkin’ Donuts: I’ve been seeing that logo for over a year now, and never […]
Sorry, there will never be a universal writing system
Jochen Gos emailed me awhile back with news of her new book Icon-Typing and website Icon-language which is a font that creates pictograms when a person types in their own […]
License plate linguistics
Here’s a little fun with writing and ambiguity. A few nights ago I saw a license plate with some friends that read: OYABABY Oddly enough, I parsed this first as […]
Codex Boturini
My old friend John Jacobson passes along this link to the final pages of the Mexica Aztecs’ Codex Boturini which shows some very interesting text/sequential image combinations. It’s definitely worth […]