Sounds of silence and sunk cost…

More than seven years ago(!) I wrote a blog where I discussed sound effects in comics. I know because I was going to wittily(?) title this blog “The Sounds of Silence” before it occurred to me to check if I’d already done that.

Sigh. Keep writing nearly every week for long enough and you’ll repeat yourself. I suppose at least I haven’t reached the point where I’ve stopped caring about whether or not I’m repeating myself.

Anyhow, where was I? Oh yes, comic book sound effects. Every creator reaches those points where they decide whether a given panel of their comic is going to have a visible sound effect or not. Some never do this. Some indulge only rarely. Some fill their pages with all manner of BIFFBAMPOW BUDDABUDDA. The thing is, there’s another level once you commit to “making a noise” and that’s: what noise do I make?

What combination of letters best represents glass breaking? Or an axe chopping into wood? Or a gun firing?

And then because it’s comics, there’s even this unique question: what does that noise look like?

And then one last question: the next time this sound happens in my comic, will it be the same?

For consistency’s sake it should be, right?

The representation of sound can be very subjective, but I’ve recently been pondering a certain decision I made way back when, and that’s the sound Oscar’s AK-47 makes when it fires, which I put down as various variations of BRR-RRR-RRT and I’ve stuck with that ever since.

But damn, every time I hear an AK-47 firing these days I think, “Wow it doesn’t sound like BRR-RRR-RRT at all.” Yet here I am still doing it that way because consistency.

If I changed it up would people notice? Or care? Am I indulging in a version of the sunk cost fallacy where I keep on with something that’s foolish (or at least is currently bothering me) because I feel like it’s too late to change?

Yeah, hardly the kind of stuff that keeps most people up at night. It’s not really keeping me up at night either, to be honest, but sometimes it’s good to get it out there and hear what others think.