"If you love it, you really don't know much about typography and if you hate it you really don't know much about typography either and should get another hobby."
--Vincent Connare
Comic Sans has pretty much become a punchline these days. Hating it is practically a bedrock of web culture at this point.
At this time, I feel a need to link to both Achewood and Dinosaur Comics. And, I suppose, BanComicSans.com.
For those of you just joining us in the font nerd carnival, it's not that Comic Sans is a bad font in its own right, it's just that it's used incorrectly 99% of the places you see it. Comic strip dialogue? Yes. Restaurant Menus? No thank you. And, thanks to the previously discussed Core Fonts initiative, every budding designer has a copy at hand.
So, where did the scourge of the font world come from? As with all good news / bad news in modern computing, the answer is: Microsoft.
A font designer working for Microsoft named Vincent Connare knocked the font together for a very specific purpose, for which it was more or less perfect. Somehow, it then got included in the Windows 95 core fonts much to the surprise and low-level dismay of everyone involved.
Connare reveals the secret history of the font on his website.
Also, be sure to read the official Comic Sans page over at Microsoft Typography.
Finally, the Snog Blog delivers an excellent interview with Connare about Comic Sans and the hoopla around it.
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