The Curse of Comic Sans
Such pretty posters. Such a bad choice of font.
I am, of course, talking about the recently publicized posters for the upcoming comic-book to film adaptation of Frank Miller’s Sin City (trailer). Take a gander at the taglines of each of these posters. In the case above, it states “Hell of a way to end a partnership”. That text is set in MS Comic Sans, the font, that you must never ever ever use, ever! No matter what. (here’s why).
On posters such as these, it pains me even more to see the use of this … abomination of a font. Because the posters are great! The colours, the graphics, the composition — everything is eye candy. Everything except the tagline font. This single mistake ruins it for me. Nothing warrants the use of Comic Sans — perhaps children selling lemonade, but even there it’s a bad choice.
Where in the process did this go wrong? Who approved it? Who made the decision to choose Comic Sans over, say these alternatives, and has she been fired for it? Let’s just hope they don’t use it in the movie.
Here’s how the posters could have looked:
Before:
After:
Ah! I’ve been meaning to delve into such things. It’s noted, thank you!
Only a curiosity:
Miller’s Dark Night Retuns lettering was one of the more important references of Connare when he was designing Comic Sans
“I started (…) trying to make the capitals in a similar form as the lettering used in DC, Marvel and all other company’s comic books. The ?Dark Knight Returns? a Batman book was one of the books I referenced often.
(http://www.connare.com/comic.htm)
Maybe it is the Curse of Comic Sans, whose evil force returns to the man that made it possible…
:)
Your ‘these alternatives’ link doesn’t work…
Out of interest which font (hopefully free!) do you think is most appropriate for the dialogue boxes in Sin City posters?
Hi, J-Lo,
I’ve update the alternatives link, thanks for pointing it out.
I would point you directly to the font entitled Digital Strip Italic, which is indeed available for free. That’s the one I used in the previews in the article.
Thanks for the swift reply!
By absolute chance I downloaded the font ‘digital strip’ from the Blambot site after posting here… but glad to know it comes highly recommended :)
My Biology teacher uses Comic Sans for experiment method handouts.It makes it so hard to take them seriously
My housemate’s a typographer for one of the big London ad agencies and I had this argument with him a couple of weeks ago. I got schooled!
Would you say that the Simpson’s logo is ‘inappropriate’? I think it suits the programme down to the ground… And it’s Comic Sans.
To quote my mate: There’s no such thing as a bad font, only bad typographers; Every font has it’s place, no matter how poorly you think it is designed.
Mike Stenhouse,
I do agree that the Simpsons logo is indeed very appropriate for that programme. But I assure you that is not Comic Sans. Take a closer look (this was the only picture I could find). The Simpsons logo is a design by creator Matt Groening. In fact, in his Simpsons comics you’ll notice the same font from time to time.
In fact, the biggest part of the whole argument against Comic Sans is that there are so many good alternatives.
That said, I agree. There’s a place for every font, and an appropriate use even for Comic Sans.
Hmmmm, I saw the Simpsons the other day and I’d swear that’s not the same logo… The logo you’ve linked to there is definitely not Comic Sans, and I’d like to think that I’m not be quite that dozy, but it wouldn’t be the first time! Ah well.
If I had my way, all comics would be hand-written, but I might be a little old-school on that one… I love the idiosyncracy of peoples’ handwriting and I think fonts that try to replicate it often lack something.
daisy and i are very much against the use of comic sans in any situation other than stabbing it in the heart with a big steak knife. it is saved for those lovley harry potter obsessed freaks who also enjoy bird watching and trying to be funny. what is better for them than a diabolical font that tries too hard to look laid back, care free and fun (needless to say, it fails)? its the perfect thing for them to write into mizz magazine with, or possibly girl talk. It enables them to tell their latest amusing stories about what happened when they went to the bottom their garden and saw a magpie, before writing about it in their bird-journal. of course, such stories are never printed. these magazines are already crap, they dont need anything else to bring misery into the hearts of thousands of teenagers. Of course, they have already accomplished this by using comic sans in their magazines at all.
You people are bored. It is only a font… so what if it does not send right messages or if it does not look good on posters? Nothing in this world looks great to anyone, we all think we know what looks good and what does but we really dont know shit! Besides, its not like the font will jump out of the computer and strangle us all to death! It is only a font that somoene was creative and smart enough to create. So honestly find something better and more effecient to complain about, like world war, famine, government, global warming… something that relates to the whole world and not just some angry, bored people.
And you finding precious time to comment on this, Robin, really strengthens your point…
I enjoyed the discussion here very much, Joen.