Manga Moment: Ellipses as indicators of speechlessness in ’54 MAD Magazine

During a discussion we three were having today about the use of the ellipsis in manga, anime, and videogames to indicate speechlessness, I remembered seeing the same technique used by Jack Davis in the story “Hah! Noon!” in MAD Magazine issue #9, February-March, 1954 (a parody of High Noon). So now you know: while I’m not familiar enough with Occupation-era manga to say if ellipses were used in this manner during the ’40s, it’s not a new technique — and certainly pre-dates its use in Japanese role-playing videogames.

1. [murray]

   Strangest post so far today!

2. [millia]

   Unrelated to the use of ellipses, Jack Davis is a genius. Guess which frat he went to?

3. [Jake0748]

   well, I think…

4. [John Brownlee]

   …

   I’M A’STAYIN!

5. [Frank_in_Virginia]

   The Ellipsis is my personal favorite.

   [citation] (plural ellipses; from Greek ἔλλειψις ‘omission’) in printing and writing refers to a mark or series of marks that usually indicate an intentional omission of a word or a phrase from the original text. An ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in speech, an unfinished thought or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence (aposiopesis).

6. [Chris P]

   David Foster Wallace used this technique extensively in Infinite Jest, and the silence-indicating ellipses were subsequently taken up by a lot of McSweeney’s contributors, including Dave Eggers.

7. [gconway]

   Jack Davis, the artist who drew this story, did not use the ellipsis… the ellipsis was used by Harvey Kurtzmann, who *wrote* the story. Contrary to popular belief, the artist of a comic strip or comic book story is often not the writer. And given that Jack Davis, brilliant as he is, worked off Harvey’s layouts as well as his script, an argument could be made that he wasn’t the sole artist of this story as well. Credit where credit is due.