This study on the use and interpretation of gestures in comics, and in particular in the ASTERIX series, reveals that people understand the effects of the gesticulary acts because: the gesture's meaning lies in the ingesticulary acts, independently of the exact propositional content; people have a good understanding of comic gestures; and similar 'real life' gesticulary acts generate the same ingesticulary effects. These findings support the hypothesis that in figurative art, a gesture accompanying a speech act, relates to the speech act's force rather than to its propositional content.