The art of printing has blossomed somewhat since Guttenberg built his mechanical type, Designer’s and stylist have worked tirelessly to bring a huge library of typefaces to the common lexicon of everyday usage. Some with the intention of not providing a single barrier between the reader and the page. Others exist solely to bring attention to themselves. There’s a font for every occasion. Few, however, receive ire, especially if they serve a purpose, as few reach that level of recognition to deserve such hatred, yet one was, bearing the name that causes shudders of revulsion to run through the spine of designers everywhere. That font was Comic Sans.

Comic Sans derives its name from the fact that it is a part of the sans-serif family of fonts. What that means is that those little to guiding lines you find at the bottom of certain characters (mainly on a printed page) called serifs have been removed (hence Sans-serif). The comic originates from the fact it’s supposed to emulate the letters in old comic books, (there will be some reading this who know that those comic books rarely have those little guiding lines at the bottom, so calling the font sans might be a bit redundant). Regardless, for people who wish to spice up the visual appeal of their writing, you can see their appeal.

Comic Sans joins a long line of fonts that serve legitimate uses, some of the big names come as default. Times, Times New Roman, Ariel et al. each looking similar yet different to warrant arguments for many years to come. You’ve got Courier, which has the magic property that a page of its typing, equals a minute of screen time on a film or a television show. Helvetica makes your text look clean yet knowledgeable. Comic Sans started life in Microsoft Bob, and as it outlived its parental program to become the go-to choice for people everywhere.

The font has even seen some official uses. Famously being used by Presidential Lawyers and in a press releases about the Higgs Boson so much so it over shined the actual news the article was talking about. Even the Doge meme of 2012 chose Comic Sans. Outside these famous cases, countless office memos and young children who wish to create superhero stories of their own have been drawn to the font.

Maybe it’s due to the fonts overuse by many for the serious and mundane, getting on people’s nerves, or maybe it is because it never reached the aesthetic peaks of other fonts. But Comic Sans serves a purpose that few can deny. There are countless Serif and San Serif fonts, each with their hyper-specialised use cases, but if you want your writing to feel like it came straight out of the streets of Metropolis. Your choice is clear. Though it’s been ridiculed along with fonts like Papyrus, this font choice is anything but comical.

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