I take a certain amount of pride in the fact that this site doesn't shy away from the tough questions. The ones that don't have any easy answers. The ones on which comic fans are deeply divided.
_____So, I've got the guts to come out and ask... why are random words in comic speech balloons in bold and/or italicized?
_____Your humble host NWJ has been reading comics for a decade, and hasn't got a bloody clue what the reason is.
_____Let me give you a couple of examples of this bizarre phenomenon.
_____From Star Spangled Comics (second series) #1: "How I let you talk me into trading in my gas mask for this get-up I'll never know. At least it's forced me to lose some weight."
_____From Legion of Super-Heroes (third series) #47: "I'm glad your trip back to your world didn't diminish your sense of the obvious, Quislet."
_____From Gen13 (second series) #2: "This was the latest in a series of attacks against U.S. military installations."
_____From Dr. Strange Classics #2: "Not yet, master! Dr. Strange must know that any spell he uses will guide us to him so long as we watch the enchanted globe."
_____Okay, you have probably noticed several aspects of this puzzle. First, these words tend to occur several times per sentence. Second, any type of word, from adverbs to nouns to prepositions, can be affected.
_____What, then, does this phenomenon mean?
_____Theory number one is that these are the important words in the sentence that the author wishes to guide the reader's attention to. But this doesn't really hold up. Why would the word "series" be the most important word in example three, when clearly the fact that it's a series of "attacks" is more important. Likewise, in example two, the entire meaning of the sentence rests upon "didn't"; the key word "diminish" would have the opposite implication from what was meant if that was all the reader noticed.
_____The second theory is that the characters themselves are either saying these words with added emphasis or slightly louder. This is patently absurd. Every single sentence in most comic books has words like this. No one talks like that. Try saying one of the above sentences aloud with an emphasis on the words in question. And only those words, as the rest of the sentence should be in a normal tone. See how unnatural it sounds? Now repeat it, only saying those words (and only those words) in a raised voice. That's even stupider, isn't it?
_____A couple of my textbooks use boldface or italics to indicate an important term which is defined in the books' glossary. However, careful examination revealed that none of the above comics had glossaries.
_____So, the puzzle remains. What does this strange practise of italicizing and putting in bold random words mean? Is it significant, or just a way to amuse bored letterers? Is it a means of alien communication with us, or a sign that comic characters speak in bizarre randomly emphatic tones?
_____What do you think?