Sans Comic
Excerpt from the script of 'The Great Font Heist?'
Bartholomew: "Comic Sans is a structural atrocity! The kerning alone suggests the letters were spaced by a frantic squirrel throwing nuts at a keyboard. My objection is purely typographical!"
Balthazar: "Pah, you focus on the technical flaws; I focus on the sheer sociological horror! Comic Sans isn't a font; it's a lifestyle choice made by people who think clip art is avant-garde."
Bartholomew: "The stroke weight is an unmodulated nightmare, making my highly sensitive architectural eye weep at the inconsistent 'texture' of the word. It's the visual equivalent of a poorly tuned kazoo—loud, obnoxious, and completely unsuited for communicating the gravitas of my monthly expense reports! It doesn't just look unprofessional; it looks like a corporate memo that was lovingly transcribed by a sentient, yet incredibly drunk, rubber stamp."
Balthazar: "It’s the typeface used to announce a community bake sale and then, unforgivably, the same typeface used on an official 'Do Not Enter: Biohazard' sign. It’s the visual language of apathy! It was conceived for a virtual cartoon dog, and yet it's been forced onto gravestones and legal disclaimers, confusing the very fabric of formal discourse! By using Comic Sans, you are not merely making a design error; you are declaring to the world that you stopped caring about human dignity somewhere around Windows 95, and for that, Bartholomew, your soul is utterly damned!"
Asdorf: "They aren't half bad". Tatler: "Nope, they're all bad!""
Sans Comic caption1
Why am I using Comic Sans?2
- Comic Sans was designed for comics, manga, to be written in small speech bubbles. And this site and blogs are exactly that, small speech bubbles.
- It was inspired by The Dark Knight Returns (lettered by John Costanza) and Watchmen (lettered by Dave Gibbons). Yeah, me too.
- I don't know much about typography, and though I am a keen learner, typography does not make it in my top 500 things to learn.
- It can easily be handwritten, and is arguably very legible. Read and write. The whole point of letters.
- It is said to be aesthetically pleasing to children. I vouch for this one.
- A clique has tried to bully it out. I hate bullies.
- It is "sans"-serif, you know these ugly little appendages sprouting from serif typefonts.
Quote
“If you love it, you don’t know much about typography. And if you hate it, you really don’t know much about typography either and you should get another hobby.” Vincent Connare
More importantly, "Why not"3
Is Comic Sans ADHD friendly?
ADHD-friendly fonts like OpenDyslexic, Arial, and Comic Sans incorporate characteristics in their design that help.
Bartholomew and Balthazar Explain All the Reasons to Avoid Unfashionable Excalifont
"I simply can't use Excalifont," muttered Bartholomew, adjusting his perfectly ironed pocket square, "because it makes my highly technical system architecture diagrams look like they were hastily sketched on a napkin by a brilliant toddler who was simultaneously inventing cold fusion." He paused for dramatic effect. "Furthermore, the improved legibility is deeply offensive. I prefer the old Virgil font's authentic 'I might be hallucinating this flowchart' aesthetic. The clear lines of Excalifont betray the spirit of my hastily conceptualized genius! Also, my graphic designer cousin, Balthazar, insists that using the default hand-drawn font of a beloved open-source tool will shatter my professional illusion of having commissioned a bespoke, seven-figure corporate brand typeface. And finally, if I use a font this friendly, how will anyone know I'm an incredibly serious person with crippling deadlines?"
Excalifont, a most excellent, accessible, open-source, modern font is downloadable at Excalidraw.
Info
The section on Excalifont was added in 2025, when The Stemarch decided to replace Comic Sans, who they will still love to the end-of-days, by Excalifont.
House rules, The Stemarch rules, cont'd
On using they for a single person: there is an unbroken tradition of using the singular they from Shakespeare —and even before— to present times, why should we not?