In an attempt to explore the relationships between words and gestures
in comics, the terms 'gesticulary' 'ingesticulatory' and 'pergesticula
ry act' are proposed and employed. A study is reported, in which frequ
ent gestures from Asterix books were investigated. Ten gestures were u
sed in the first part of the study together with their accompanied utt
erances in the comics, in order to examine the gesture-utterance conne
ction. In the second part of the study, 26 subjects were presented wit
h those gestures, along with corresponding photographed gestures. They
were asked to propose utterances for the gestures and to ascribe poss
ible meanings to them. We conclude from the results that the meaning o
f a gesture lies in the ingesticulary act, independently of the exact
propositional content. We also argue that people have a firm comprehen
sion of comics gestures, and that those gestures are understood to mea
n the same as similar 'real life' gestures.