You've all seen them, some of you have probably used them, and the more potty-mouthed of you have at one point or another wondered why the hell theyre even necessary but now you can consider yourself among those who actually know what the random censoring symbols in comic books and strips are called. Thats right: the f@#%ing things actually have names! The term not in widespread use was apparently introduced by American cartoonist Mort Walker in the 60s to signify a spiral-shaped symbol used to denote curse words in comics, but has now expand to refer to the more common string of symbols denoting profanity in many visual mediums. @#%$ yeah!