Onomatopoeic terminologies in comic strips

David McKie wrote recently in the Guardian about the word Splat - yes it did crop up once or twice in nineteenth century literature but it hardly became common before the dawn of the comic book.

Words like splat, zap and pow are called onomatopoeic terminologies and are really versatile especially when prefixed with a "ker" which indicates the split second before an event takes place.

For instance:
Kerbam - a sudden noise or sharp shock
Kerbang - a sudden sharp noise or explosion
Kerwhop - a solid body falling onto a hard surface
Kerwhoosh - indicates speeding movement
Kerwhallop - to bash someone usually on the jaw
Kerslap - to slap someone across the face
Kerching - the sound of money falling out of a gambling machine

I'd never really thought of how inventive onomatopoeia usage in comic books is. I picked up a comic book at random - Tales to Astonish 80 featuring a battle between The Hulk and The Sub-Mariner and found on one page alone - several, whummp's, one or two whist's and a splattering of skrunches. The list goes on - when the Hulk leaps into thin air it sounds like, Thoom and when he smashes a tank it sound like bar-oom. And then in an issue of Spectacular Spider-Man I discovered that Spider being thrown through the air makes a vroosh sound. Old British comics tend to be a bit more reserved but there are plenty of biffs, bashes, splinks, splonks and gulps.

Ahh well I'm logging off now - buzzshhhwimp