# Identify this font! (Comic book aficiandos of TPBs take a peek) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 7, 2002, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-font-comic-book-aficiandos-of-tpbs-take-a-peek/135621 "2002-11-07T02:53:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-font-comic-book-aficiandos-of-tpbs-take-a-peek/135621/1 "2002-11-07T02:53:09Z")
That font is uniquely used by the Invisible Man. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-font-comic-book-aficiandos-of-tpbs-take-a-peek/135621/2 "2002-11-07T03:02:18Z")
That font is uniquely used by the Invisible Man. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-font-comic-book-aficiandos-of-tpbs-take-a-peek/135621/3 "2002-11-07T04:19:00Z")
(Double-take.) Where’s my post? I mean, I typed a query AND a title to this post. I READ the query before it posted. Where the hell is my query? Okay, at least NOW I know why I didn’t get an answer six hours earlier… MY QUESTION: See, there’s this font used in the Neil Gaiman SANDMAN TPB, “Seasons of Mists”, in the introduction by Harlan Ellison. The font somewhat resembles Bookman but whenever words with a ‘sh’ or ‘ch’ combination are used, there’s this neat curlicle that comes off the ‘h’ and hangs over the word. I checked the TPB indica carefully but unlike, say, a novel, it doesn’t mention typesetting for fonts. I hope some of you SANDMAN readers out there are familiar with what I’m talking about and/or this description was clear enough, because I was wondering what the name of that font was, and whether it was commercially availble. Ta-da! Astound me, Teeming Millions, with a definitive answer… ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-font-comic-book-aficiandos-of-tpbs-take-a-peek/135621/4 "2002-11-07T05:49:05Z")
Just looked at it. It’s great having a roommate who’s a Gaiman fan. 😃 The characteristic you speak of is called a ligature. The most common one is the fl or fi-- the f and i or l are connected, making the character pair æsthetically appealing and more readable. æ is also common. I don’t know the name of the typeface that was used, but I hope that gives you a hand in your search. Free font archives will likely have it, under “fancy”, “special”, or “fantasy” and “decorative”. I’ll look around a little for you. ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-font-comic-book-aficiandos-of-tpbs-take-a-peek/135621/5 "2002-11-07T05:57:15Z")
Just looked at it. It’s great having a roommate who’s a Gaiman fan. 😃 The characteristic you speak of is called a ligature. The most common one is the fl or fi-- the f and i or l are connected, making the character pair æsthetically appealing and more readable. æ is also common. I don’t know the name of the typeface that was used, but I hope that gives you a hand in your search. Free font archives will likely have it, under “fancy”, “special”, or “fantasy” and “decorative”. I’ll look around a little for you. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2002, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-font-comic-book-aficiandos-of-tpbs-take-a-peek/135621/6 "2002-11-08T21:11:02Z")
AudreyK – Thanks for the tip – I still haven’t found anything remotely like the font I saw. Anyone else care to guess what i’m talking about? ---
**Author:** ![Smashed\_Ice\_Cream](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Smashed\_Ice\_Cream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smashed_Ice_Cream)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2002, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-font-comic-book-aficiandos-of-tpbs-take-a-peek/135621/7 "2002-11-09T08:38:17Z")
If you get completely stuck - scan the page that the font is on into a jpeg and upload it to [www.whathtefont.com](http://www.whathtefont.com) I use that fairly often and have about a 75% success rate with it identifying it. ---
**Author:** ![Earthling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/90db22/32.png) [@Earthling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthling)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2002, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-font-comic-book-aficiandos-of-tpbs-take-a-peek/135621/8 "2002-11-10T02:44:50Z")
I don’t have the book, but if the same typeface is used for both the cover and the contents, then it looks an awful lot like [Trajan](http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/F/TRAJ/F_TRAJ-10005000.jhtml). Just for fun, you can actually type in your own text [here](http://www.eyewire.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/TypeViewer.woa/wa/populateForFont?productId=173427) to see how they match up to what you see in the book. I didn’t see any ligatures of swashes offered as a part of the Trajan font family, so they may have been custom-made. If the font is something else, you can also try your luck at [Identifont](http://www.identifont.com/identify.html). ---
**Author:** ![Earthling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/90db22/32.png) [@Earthling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthling)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2002, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-font-comic-book-aficiandos-of-tpbs-take-a-peek/135621/9 "2002-11-10T02:50:15Z")
Oops…I should’ve noted that I found the cover online [here](http://www.dccomics.com/directcurrents/comics/covers/download/dsndsoms.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2002, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-font-comic-book-aficiandos-of-tpbs-take-a-peek/135621/10 "2002-11-10T11:32:55Z")
Trajan is an all-caps font, I think. It wouln’t have the lowercase ligatures. I found this just now. I don’t think it’s the exact font, but it looks a lot like it: > **[FAQs about fonts | Adobe Type](https://www.adobe.com/products/type/fonts-by-adobe.html)** > > Information on where to get Adobe Type fonts and other frequently asked questions.