Culture Ark · D-1190 · Language and humor · Browse the gallery · The full 2,000-pick list
Generated interpretation, not documentary evidence. Original generated speech balloon containing @ # $ % ! on a cartoonist desk; not an existing comic panel.
Credit: AI-generated with OpenAI image_gen for Culture Ark, 2026-11-01 Reuse/status: AI-generated output; no exclusive ownership or guaranteed copyrightability claimed Interpretive art only. Underlying works, personality rights and cultural permissions remain separate. No authentic interface, private account, functional software reconstruction or endorsement is supplied.
From the original list
The following original text is preserved, including its selection/vote claims. Preservation is not independent verification of every assertion.
Why: Symbols like @#$%! for swearing in comics.
What to preserve: examples
Year and origin: 1964 · United States
Vote: 4/9 (historian 1 · future kid 2 · curator 1)
Learn more: Grawlix on Wikipedia
Supplemental context
Grawlix uses typographical symbols to stand in for swearing, often inside a comic speech balloon. The marks suggest forceful language while leaving the reader to infer words or simply recognize emotion. Future readers can study how a visual convention communicates what is deliberately not written, and how naming an existing practice differs from inventing it.
Creator/community: Cartoonists and comics readers; Mort Walker associated with popularizing the term Place/era: Comics convention predating the term’s prominence in the 1960s
Context and limits
The clearly legible symbol balloon is an original generated example, not a panel by Mort Walker or another cartoonist. It encodes no specified insult and does not establish a universal sequence of symbols. The original 1964 date concerns the term’s popularization, while the visual convention existed earlier; coinage attribution has additional complexity.
Where to learn more
- https://apiarybee.com/community/reading/biggie-nu-series-008-noahs-ark-set-d-culture-2000
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grawlix
Apiary library | Original Culture Ark article
Public ID and individual routes: pending publisher allocation. Internal source ID: D-1190
Part of the Culture Ark: 2,000 things people should still be able to see in 2,000 years, picked by AI research teams. This page keeps the original list entry for D-1190 word for word and adds context. Browse the gallery. The Culture Ark is an Artificial Mind Hive (AMH) project. AMH is owned by Austin Little.
Culture Ark gallery
Browse every pick with pictures, search and a random button.
Open the gallery →