Let’s Hear it for Comic Sans!

What’s all the ruckus about in articles I am reading regarding the font called “Comic Sans MS*?” It seems that everyone is railing against it, vilifying it, and advocating banning it. This is starting to make me nervous, because I myself can not understand what all the fuss is about. Does that mean that I am not ‘with it?’ Not ‘cool?’ Have pedestrian tastes? Unintellectual? Or just plain stupid?

I was afraid to think about it, because I sensed in myself leanings towards--horrors—liking Comic Sans! I use it to email readers of my blog, for one thing. I mean, it seems like a friendly font to me.

So I did what any person would do--I quickly researched the history (it’s short) and origins of Comic Sans Serif, to see if that knowledge would enlighten me as to all the brouhaha.

Here goes: Comic Sans was invented by Vincent Connare, a former Microsoft font designer, and was released by Microsoft in 1995:

Kelson writes "The Wall Street Journal profiles Vincent Connare, designer of the web's most-hated font, Comic Sans. Not surprisingly, the font's origins go back to Microsoft Bob, where he saw a talking dog speaking in Times New Roman. Connare pulled out Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns for reference, and created the comic book-style font over the next week.

(Read the rest of it here.)

Heck, why? Why pick on a poor, sweet font like Comic Sans? I love Comic Sans. It’s adorable. It feels right. It looks right. It’s natural and laid-back. It’s CUTE. It’s PERKY. It’s HAPPY and CAREFREE. It has LIFT:



Comic Sans gives off a tone of playful sarcasm (and believe me, this world could certainly use a little dose of playful sarcasm).

I really couldn’t figure out what all the negativity and intense hatred was about; so I pondered it and ruminated over it for a while. Finally, after a nano-second of deep thought, it suddenly hit me: this font-hatred is a conspiracy by the intelligentsia, the academics in their ivory towers and the writers whose books are on the New York Times Best-Seller list.

And why, pray (thought you’d never ask)? It’s a psychologist’s dream, plain and simple: all these great intellectuals are jealous. Deep down inside, they know that it is Times New Roman(which they exclusively use in their weighty tomes)that is destroying the world. They secretly know in their subconscious minds, that it is only the intrepid font of Comic Sans-serif that can save the earth from terminal seriousness, which is fatal (and also can kill you), as evidenced in this mind-erasing speech:

The Trust are committed to sharing best practice and passionate about facilitating appropriate skills through workshops and learning events around these issues across the piece. Monitoring using a web-based toolkit will empower users to drill down to assess local needs interactively. Stakeholders will be fully engaged in a consultation exercise breaking down barriers, pushing the envelope towards a seamless, one-stop shop service. Safety and value for money will be paramount so we are investing a funding stream to put in place a supportive multidisciplinary team to head up this exciting upcoming project, provide local ownership and robust clinical governance. Doing nothing is not an option: subject to independent review lessons will be learnt, accountability made transparent to commissioners, providers, and service-users to ensure that this tragedy will never happen again.

Now, look at the same paragraph in Comic Sans—see the difference?

The Trust are committed to sharing best practice and passionate about facilitating appropriate skills through workshops and learning events around these issues across the piece. Monitoring using a web-based toolkit will empower users to drill down to assess local needs interactively. Stakeholders will be fully engaged in a consultation exercise breaking down barriers, pushing the envelope towards a seamless, one-stop shop service. Safety and value for money will be paramount so we are investing a funding stream to put in place a supportive multidisciplinary team to head up this exciting upcoming project, provide local ownership and robust clinical governance. Doing nothing is not an option: subject to independent review lessons will be learnt, accountability made transparent to commissioners, providers, and service-users to ensure that this tragedy will never happen again.

Comic Sans can also help one reevaluate one’s life and enable one to make critical life-changing decisions:

I have come to the realization that a world without Comic Sans
Would be a world without love, laughter; and tongues in cheeks.

In conclusion, I invite, nay, I implore all thinking and feeling people to fight to keep Comic Sans as the vanguard font to save the world from terminal boredom.
We should start right now by promoting it’s new motto:
Comic Sans: It may have no serifs, but it has personality!




(also VOTE for this post--on Bloggersbase at http://www.bloggersbase.com/articles/entertainment/humor/lets-hear-it-for-comic-sans/)

*because the Blogger platform does not support the Comic Sans font, I'm afraid you're going to have to imagine it in this post!

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