Meet Mr. Comic Sans
The Wall Street Journal has posted a story about Vincent Connare, the man who birthed Comic Sans. The article is an interesting summary mostly on the widespread use of Comic Sans and a bit of history on the creation of the typeface (for example, Comic Sans was partly inspired by both The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen). It’s a fascinating read and contains gems such as:
“If you love it, you don’t know much about typography,” Mr. Connare says. But, he adds, “if you hate it, you really don’t know much about typography, either, and you should get another hobby.”
Am I the only one who would really like some clarification on that? Apparently if one reads twixt the leading: if you’re ambivalent towards Comic Sans you’re an ace typographer?
But by far my favorite bit of the article would have to be when it mentions that, “[Connare] used Sans (short for sans-serif) because most of the lettering, except for the uppercase I, doesn’t have serifs, the small features at the end of strokes.” Could I still call something an airplane race around the world if one solitary boat took part in it? I don’t know. Welcome to the shade of grey known as Comic Sans.
