Speach Balloons by Paul Hornschemeier

Here's a few panels from various comics by Paul Hornschemeier that I feel really do a good job of visualizing how a text balloon should look for various situations in a given narrative:1. In this panel the narrator steps in and takes over the storytelling. Its not certain that the offstage dialogue really says "A present," but the gist of the dialogue are given to us by the narration box. I just love the way the balloon continues on into the second panel.
2. The next one is a twist on an old standard use of the off-stage dialogue (or off panel dialogue) Normally, in this case the tail just goes off to the edge of the panel like the first example, but in this case, the tail looks as though it is squeezing through the crack between the door and the door frame. This makes things more specific which I think is a good idea as comics start enjoying a wider readership. New readers need more specific images especially if they haven't been initiated into the cliches/language of traditional comics.
3. Generic conversations that are unimportant to the plot. Not specific at all, but convey a general sense of conversational hubbub.
4. Finally, an eloquently designed interruption. Some artists would treat this like you would in prose; putting two balloons side by side and having the words end with a "-" in the first balloon and continue on to the second. Hornschemeier poetically places the second balloon right on top of the first piece of dialogue- even obscuring it a bit.

I'm trying to think of a way to show lip syncing in my comic. So far I have two nested balloons with the one on the outside containing the phrase "[lip sync]" and the balloon on the inside showing some sort of musical typography of the lyrics being mouthed. I'll try to put up a sketch later of what I'm talking about. Does anyone have any better ideas?