Twenty-five years ago, a typographer invented Comic Sans because digital dogs don’t speak in elegant fonts. “Dogs don’t talk in Times New Roman!” Vincent Connare told the Guardian. “So, I had an idea to make a comic-style text.”
Connare was working on a short-lived program called Microsoft Bob, created to make computers more user-friendly for children. When a digital dog appeared on the screen talking in Times New Roman, Connare decided the program needed a font that was more fitting and fun.
Thus Comic Sans was born. The font gets the latter half of its name from being a sans serif font, lacking the minuscule projections on the ends of letters that mark serif fonts such as the one you’re reading in this magazine. It’s easy to recognize where the “Comic” comes from when you see the font.
Since its creation in October 1994, Comic Sans has become a popular choice for birthday cards, workplace memos, and even storefronts. Earlier this month, a former Trump lawyer responded to an impeachment inquiry with a letter written in Comic Sans.
Some see it as a joke, while others see it as a scourge. Over the years, websites and groups such as Comic Sans Criminal and Ban Comic Sans have arisen.
The founders behind the latter group, Dave and Holly Combs, founded the anti-Comic Sans collective in 2002. Since then, Dave says he’s changed his mind: “I will confess there is something in me that over the years has grown to like Comic Sans the same way people like an ugly dog or a dirty old pair of shoes,” he wrote. The group’s Facebook name is now “Use Comic Sans.”
Despite its many questionable uses, from architecture to temporary birth certificates, there is one instance where writers certainly should use Comic Sans. This spring, writer Lauren Hudgins explained the font helps her dyslexic sister read. “The irregular shapes of the letters in Comic Sans allow her to focus on the individual parts of words,” Hudgins wrote. “While many fonts use repeated shapes to create different letters, such as a ‘p’ rotated to make a ‘q,’ Comic Sans uses few repeated shapes, creating distinct letters.”
Both the British Dyslexia Association and the Dyslexia Association of Ireland recommend the font for dyslexic readers, and it earned the endorsement of the American Institute of Graphic Arts. As it turns out, Comic Sans’ enigmatic popularity hasn’t been such a bad thing after all.
