The Lexicon of Comicana
The Lexicon of Comicana is a 1980 book by the American cartoonist Mort Walker. It was intended as a tongue-in-cheek look at the devices used by comics cartoonists. In it, Walker invented an international set of symbols called "symbolia" after researching cartoons around the world (described by the term "comicana"). In 1964, Walker had written an article called "Let's Get Down to Grawlixes", a satirical piece for the National Cartoonists Society. He used terms such as "grawlixes" for his own amusement, but they soon began to catch on and acquired an unexpected validity . The "Lexicon" was written in response to this. The names he invented for them sometimes appear in dictionaries, and serve as convenient terminology occasionally used by cartoonists and critics. A 2001 gallery showing of comic- and street-influenced art in San Francisco, for example, was called ""Plewds! Squeans! and Spurls!"" Additional symbolia terms include whiteope, sphericasia, that-a-tron, spurls, oculama, crottles, maledicta balloons, farkles, doozex, staggeration, boozex, digitrons, nittles, waftaroms, and jarns.