Comic Sans

Comic Sans Pro is an improved and expanded version created by Terrance Weinzierl from Monotype Imaging. While retaining the original classic design of the core characters, it adds new italic variants of the original fonts, swashes, small capitals, extra ornaments and symbols including speech bubbles, onomatopoeia and dingbats, as well as text figures and other stylistic alternates.[9][10][11] Originally appearing as part of Ascender 2010 Font Pack as Comic Sans 2010, it was first released on April Fools' Day, causing some to initially assume it was a joke.[12][13][14]

The italic fonts later appeared in Windows 8.[15]

According to a Twitter poll held by TES with 7,234 participants, approximately 44% of teachers use Comic Sans in teaching resources. Comic Sans is widely used in schools due to its high legibility. Other reasons include:[17]

• That it is a suitable font for dyslexic students
• That is a good font to model handwriting with due to the handwriting-like glyphs of the lower-case letters 'a' and 'g'
• That it is aesthetically pleasing to children

However, there is some research evidence to suggest that Comic Sans is more legible than other widely used fonts because of the wider spacing between its letters, not because of the shapes of the letters themselves.[17]

The Boston Phoenix reported on disgruntlement over the widespread use of the font, especially its incongruous use for writing on serious subjects, with the complaints urged on by a campaign started by two Indianapolis graphic designers, Dave and Holly Combs, via their website "Ban Comic Sans".[18] The movement was conceived in 1999 by the two designers after an employer insisted that one of them use Comic Sans in a children's museum exhibit, and in early 2009, the movement was "stronger now than ever".[4] The website's main argument is that a typeface should match the tone of its text and that the irreverence of Comic Sans is often at odds with a serious message, such as a "do not enter" sign.[19]

In the 2005 session of the youth model parliament in Ontario, Canada, the New Democratic Party included the clause, "Ban the font known as Comic Sans", in an omnibus ban bill.[20]

Comic book artist Dave Gibbons, whose work was one of the inspirations for the font, said that it was "a shame they couldn't have used just the original font, because [Comic Sans] is a real mess. I think it's a particularly ugly letter form."[21]

Film producer and The New York Times essayist Errol Morris wrote in an August 2012 posting, "The conscious awareness of Comic Sans promotes—at least among some people—contempt and summary dismissal." With the help of a professor, he conducted an online experiment and found that Comic Sans, in comparison with five other fonts (Baskerville, Helvetica, Georgia, Trebuchet MS, and Computer Modern), makes readers slightly less likely to believe that a statement they are reading is true.[22]

Commenting on its critics and fans alike, Comic Sans designer Vincent Connare said, "If you love it, you don't know much about typography, [but] if you hate it, you really don't know much about typography either, and you should get another hobby."[23][24]

In the Netherlands, radio DJs Coen Swijnenberg and Sander Lantinga decided to celebrate the font by having a Comic Sans day on the first Friday of July. Comic Sans Day has been held since 2009. Some Dutch companies have their website in Comic Sans on this day.[25]

A 2010 Cognition research article showed disfluency could lead to improved retention and classroom performance. The article stated that disfluency can be produced merely by adopting fonts that are slightly more difficult to read. In the case studies cited in the article, Comic Sans was used to introduce disfluency.[26][27]

Comic Sans is amongst fonts recommended for dyslexics, as it has fewer rotated and mirror-image glyphs ("d" vs. "p" vs. "q") and is sans serif.[28][29] Lauren Hudgins of The Establishment argued that people who use Comic Sans should be treated with respect, not mockery, because "People without dyslexia need empathy for those who need concessions to manage the disability."[30]

It was used in the Sesame Street credits from 2003 to 2006.

In 2010 the Doge meme began, which would eventually become popular in 2013, consisting of different colored sets of words in broken English written in Comic Sans around the head of a Shiba Inu dog.

A defibrillator case in Monaco with a label in Comic Sans

A 2010 Princeton University study involving presenting students with text in a font slightly more difficult to read found that they consistently retained more information from material displayed in so-called disfluent or ugly fonts (Monotype Corsiva, Haettenschweiler, Comic Sans Italicized were used) than in a simple, more readable font such as Helvetica.[31]

During the summer of 2010, NBA superstar LeBron James left the Cleveland Cavaliers in free agency, in a highly publicized media affair that culminated in a TV special called The Decision. The majority owner of the team (at the time), Dan Gilbert, reacted by posting a letter to Cavalier fans. One of the ways the letter was heavily derided was for its use of Comic Sans.[32][33][34]

In July 2012, when the discovery of the Higgs boson was announced at CERN, Fabiola Gianotti, the spokesperson of the ATLAS experiment, attracted comment by using the font in her presentation of the results.[35][36][37] As a 2014 April Fools' Day joke, CERN claimed that it would be switching all its publications to Comic Sans.[38]

In October 2012, a Dutch World War II memorial called Verzoening ("Reconciliation") was revealed on which the names of Jewish, Allied and German military deaths alike were written alongside each other in Comic Sans. The names were eventually scraped off after complaints from Jewish organizations, but the rewritten message was once again in Comic Sans. According to the city government, this was done because the letters fit the shape of the stone and were easily visible from a distance. It was, however, criticized for making the memorial look "ugly" and "cheap".[39]

On 3 September 2014, the normally staid Australian national newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald printed a front page with Comic Sans, causing an uproar, despite its use being within speech bubbles in keeping with the origin of the font.[40]

In April 2014, OpenBSD announced the LibreSSL project, claiming to have been the first to "weaponize" Comic Sans as a means for soliciting donations.[41][42]

In 2015, graphic designer Ben Harman created the font Comic Papyrus (later renamed "Comic Parchment" for legal reasons), which combines the features of Comic Sans with the similarly reviled font Papyrus.[43]

On 21 August 2015, a number of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's Syriza party members split and formed a new party, headed by Member of the Hellenic Parliament Panagiotis Lafazanis. The official document of resignation was allegedly written in Comic Sans.[44]

In the 2015 video game Undertale, the character Sans is a comic (i.e. comedian) named after the font. His dialogue is notably displayed in lowercase Comic Sans. He is paired with his brother named Papyrus, in reference to the font of the same name.[45]

In July 2018, a statue of former Chilean President Pedro Aguirre Cerda was inaugurated in Santiago. The plaques on the monument were written in Comic Sans, drawing criticism and derision on social media.[46]

In October 2019, when the House Intelligence Committee requested that two of Rudy Giuliani's associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruma, present documentation regarding their involvement in the Ukraine scandal, former Trump attorney John Dowd penned a letter of explanation written in Comic Sans.[47]

In October 2019, as part of the United Kingdom's nation Brexit debate, the Conservative Party tweeted an image stating 'MPs must come together and get Brexit done' using Comic Sans.[48] The tweet was widely mocked, yet some commentators saw a deliberate attempt to use the font's notoriety to bring their message to a wider audience.[49]

• Linotype page
• Terrance Weinzierl page