# What was this font that everybody used for about fifty years? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 9, 2013, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802 "2013-02-09T17:09:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/21 "2013-02-09T21:54:37Z")
Comic strips and comic books were always hand lettered. The only exception was Crockett Johnson’s **[Barnaby](http://www.lambiek.net/artists/image/j/johnson_c/johnson_c.gif)**, which used [Futura Medium Italic](http://images.fonthaus.com/renderer/image.php?&back=FFFFFF&fore=000000&text=AaBbQq%0Afly%20fishing%0AKakistocracy%0A26%20Anesthesiologists%0Arelevant%20to%20exteroception%0ARodomontade%20is%20my%20favorite.%20Means%20boastful.&font=/scangraphic/FuturaSB-MediumItalic.ttf&width=540&mode=stacked&file=.png). Johnson preferred typesetting because he could get more words in each balloon. Nowadays they may be typeset (though I doubt it), but typesetting was too time-consuming and expensive to be used in comics (especially if you had to make changes: hand lettered fonts could just be erased and rewritten): you hired a letterist to handle the font. Comic Sans came as an imitation of the hand lettered fonts in comic books, and wasn’t introduced until 1994, so clearly wasn’t used before then. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/22 "2013-02-09T23:21:04Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > I’m not seeing serifs. Maybe I don’t know serifs as well as I thought. Maybe you don’t have Comic Sans installed on your mochine? What operating system are you using? If the intended font is not available, browsers know what other fonts they can substitute that will still give a readable result. For example, I am using an older version of Linux here. It has a lot of fonts installed, but there are many other well-known fonts (at least in the Microsoft world) that are not installed. In your own post #9 above, for example, all four of your sample fonts are shown as plain old Times Roman as I see them (or something that substantially resembles Times Roman – proportional fonts with serifs and most vertical strokes thicker than most horizontal strokes). ETA: Oops – This post is actually responding to **Toucanna** ’s post just before yours. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/23 "2013-02-10T00:26:56Z")
> [@Toucanna](#): > > Well, whaddayano? I looked at the CSMS page on Wikipedia and it doesn’t have serifs. Guess it’s some weird display glitch on my iPhone. Carry on… iPhone? The MS in the name means Microsoft, you know. ---
**Author:** ![Anise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anise/32/21721_2.png) [@Anise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anise)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/24 "2013-02-10T00:28:52Z")
Comic Sans really isn’t it… it’s hard to believe that’s the best anyone could do at imitating this style! Okay, here’s an example. I’m looking at a book called “Agonizing Love: The Golden Era of Romance Comics.” (Michael Barson.) Every single comic in here- without one exception-- is really lettered the same way. It might as well be a standard font, because it \*always \*looks exactly the same. Here’s an example of what I mean: [They’re using this style.](http://becker.nfshost.com/hamb/chicken%20gulp.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/25 "2013-02-10T00:35:43Z")
> [@Anise](#): > > Comic Sans really isn’t it… it’s hard to believe that’s the best anyone could do at imitating this style! > > Okay, here’s an example. I’m looking at a book called “Agonizing Love: The Golden Era of Romance Comics.” (Michael Barson.) Every single comic in here- without one exception-- is really lettered the same way. It might as well be a standard font, because it \*always \*looks exactly the same. Here’s an example of what I mean: > > [They’re using this style.](http://becker.nfshost.com/hamb/chicken%20gulp.jpg) All that is hand lettered, and the letterforms are slightly different from letter to letter. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/26 "2013-02-10T05:17:05Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Indeed, I’m not really sure that comic book lettering was altogether uniform. It wasn’t - although it appeared uniform to the layperson the people involved in the industry became familiar with the major letterers’ personal quirks. Letterers were paid in part to be consistent and did very well at it for human beings but there were variations and inconsistencies. Yes, boys and girls, in the past before computers became ubiquitous an powerful people _really did_ do such things entirely with the human hand. ---
**Author:** ![Anise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anise/32/21721_2.png) [@Anise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anise)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/27 "2013-02-10T06:29:37Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > All that is hand lettered, and the letterforms are slightly different from letter to letter. But… BUT… the way the lettering is done is in a standard style. It always looked basically the same, no matter who did it and no matter where it was. The variations were minor. It wouldn’t be so identifiable _as_ a style if they weren’t. With these type of situations, it just seems that someone, somewhere, has always created a standard font version. (And Comic Sans does not look like it. Even I could come up with something better than that, and trust me, I’m far from an expert.) ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/28 "2013-02-10T06:36:04Z")
> [@Anise](#): > > Comic Sans really isn’t it… it’s hard to believe that’s the best anyone could do at imitating this style! > > Okay, here’s an example. I’m looking at a book called “Agonizing Love: The Golden Era of Romance Comics.” (Michael Barson.) Every single comic in here- without one exception-- is really lettered the same way. It might as well be a standard font, because it \*always \*looks exactly the same. Here’s an example of what I mean: > > [They’re using this style.](http://becker.nfshost.com/hamb/chicken%20gulp.jpg) If you compare duplicated letters, they’re always different. Not a font. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/29 "2013-02-10T06:45:26Z")
Anybody else notice that comic book letterers use two different letter "I"s? The crossbars are only used for the personal pronoun “I”. All others resemble a lower-case “L”. ---
**Author:** ![Anise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anise/32/21721_2.png) [@Anise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anise)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/30 "2013-02-10T07:19:33Z")
Y’all, I KNOW that when this style was originally used, it was not a preformatted font. But on every occasion when it was used, it looked extremely similar. This is why it’s recognizable. There are so many characteristics that all of these instances of hand lettering share. Is there a font created by someone who compared all of these consistent similarities and standardized them INTO a font? I just can’t believe that Comic Sans is the only example of anything like this. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/31 "2013-02-10T07:22:27Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > In drafting and engineering schools, people are taught a very specific lettering style, so that your blueprints will be easily legible, no matter how badly they are mimeographed or faxed, blown up or shrunk down, ringed with coffee stains or smudged with fingerprints. There are a lot of rules: all capital letters, no serifs, etc. When you follow all of the rules, you end up with a style pretty close to most of the comics. Yup. I took two years of architectural drafting in high school (from '82 to '84), and I still use that lettering style (though it’s evolved over the years) to this day when I need to hand-write things. I’ve never actually worked in drafting, though. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/32 "2013-02-10T09:58:47Z")
> [@Anise](#): > > Y’all, I KNOW that when this style was originally used, it was not a preformatted font. But on every occasion when it was used, it looked extremely similar. This is why it’s recognizable. There are so many characteristics that all of these instances of hand lettering share. Is there a font created by someone who compared all of these consistent similarities and standardized them INTO a font? I just can’t believe that Comic Sans is the only example of anything like this. There isn’t just one font, there are several – dozens, I imagine. The specialists in this area are [Comicraft,](http://www.comicbookfonts.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=1815) who letter a number of comics, and who’ve gone to some considerable trouble creating fonts that match the styles of several well-known letterers. They aren’t free, but these are the fonts the professionals use. If you want a free version, there are several sources on the web if you look for them. Always take care, of course, when downloading anything from the internet, but I’ve used several fonts from [here](http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=102&page=1) without any problem. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/33 "2013-02-10T15:26:53Z")
> [@Anise](#): > > Y’all, I KNOW that when this style was originally used, it was not a preformatted font. But on every occasion when it was used, it looked extremely similar. This is why it’s recognizable. There are so many characteristics that all of these instances of hand lettering share. Is there a font created by someone who compared all of these consistent similarities and standardized them INTO a font? I just can’t believe that Comic Sans is the only example of anything like this. I linked to a bunch of free fonts in post #6 that are actually pretty good. I really don’t think there is one exactly consistent style, but there is a general feel. Look at Blambot’s “Crimefighter” typeface, for instance (which contains both vesions of the capital “I.”) ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/34 "2013-02-11T02:53:19Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Comic strips and comic books were always hand lettered. The only exception was Crockett Johnson’s **[Barnaby](http://www.lambiek.net/artists/image/j/johnson_c/johnson_c.gif)**, which used [Futura Medium Italic](http://images.fonthaus.com/renderer/image.php?&back=FFFFFF&fore=000000&text=AaBbQq%0Afly%20fishing%0AKakistocracy%0A26%20Anesthesiologists%0Arelevant%20to%20exteroception%0ARodomontade%20is%20my%20favorite.%20Means%20boastful.&font=/scangraphic/FuturaSB-MediumItalic.ttf&width=540&mode=stacked&file=.png). Uh, no. Not the only exception, actually. Off the top of my head, Steve Gallacci used type instead of hand-lettering in his independent comics from the 1980’s (_Albedo Anthropomorphics_). There may be some other obscure comics from that period that did likewise. But you’re right that they were not typeset as such. In those days, it was probably a matter of pasting balloons on. EC Comics often used a Leroy lettering set, giving the work a mechanical look. I suppose that Harry Peter’s _Wonder Woman_ comics may have used something similar. You might say those are hand-lettered, and they are certainly not typeset, but they look like a font, and are standardized letters, not the freehand letters typical of many comics. > [@](#): > > Nowadays they may be typeset (though I doubt it), but typesetting was too time-consuming and expensive to be used in comics (especially if you had to make changes: hand lettered fonts could just be erased and rewritten): you hired a letterist to handle the font. Nowadays they’re done with fonts in a program like Photoshop. If there even is a physical original, it probably doesn’t have letters. And the original might just be a Photoshop file; some artists work entirely on tablet now. (Brian Bolland & Adam Hughes both abandoned ink for computerized work years time ago.) ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/35 "2013-02-11T02:58:33Z")
> [@Anise](#): > > Comic Sans really isn’t it… it’s hard to believe that’s the best anyone could do at imitating this style! > > Okay, here’s an example. I’m looking at a book called “Agonizing Love: The Golden Era of Romance Comics.” (Michael Barson.) Every single comic in here- without one exception-- is really lettered the same way. It might as well be a standard font, because it \*always \*looks exactly the same. Here’s an example of what I mean: > > [They’re using this style.](http://becker.nfshost.com/hamb/chicken%20gulp.jpg) There are seven C’s in that panel. No two are the same. That’s not a font, it’s freehand lettering. ---
**Author:** ![Anise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anise/32/21721_2.png) [@Anise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anise)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/36 "2013-02-11T17:18:09Z")
Okay, I’m going to check out those fonts that were recommended… but I’m ALSO going to post examples of what I mean on my blog, and then I’ll link to that. (Maybe it would be easier to just create the font. 😉 There are just too many identical aspects of the lettering that was used for such a long time, too many commonalities, for it to be either some kind of accident or 1,000,000 different independent creations. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/37 "2013-02-11T17:49:30Z")
> [@Anise](#): > > Okay, I’m going to check out those fonts that were recommended… but I’m ALSO going to post examples of what I mean on my blog, and then I’ll link to that. (Maybe it would be easier to just create the font. 😉 There are just too many identical aspects of the lettering that was used for such a long time, too many commonalities, for it to be either some kind of accident or 1,000,000 different independent creations. Like we said, there is no “ONE” typeface used for comics. If you look through old Marvel, DC, King Features, etc., comics, you will note the lettering looks a bit different depending on who lettered it. I’m not a big comic book geek, but I am interested in the subject via typography and graphic design, and there’s clearly differences in style between different letterers, much like there is a difference between Times New Roman and Garamond and Minion, even though maybe at casual glance they look similar in that they’re serifed fonts. [Here’s another series of comic book style fonts](http://www.comicbookfonts.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=1815), but they’re not free. They all have the “comic book” feel, but they’re all a little bit different, some much more different than others. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/38 "2013-02-11T18:53:38Z")
When I was working for Hallmark Cards, they had a font based on Charles Schultz’s hand lettering. It was the most complicated font I have ever seen, with a huge number of variations of the letter e, with very complicated kerning pairs. I wish I had taken a copy with me. By the way, back in the day, we used Fontographer to design new fonts and modify existing ones. Is there a new font tool that replaced it? ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/39 "2013-02-11T21:14:24Z")
> [@Anise](#): > > Okay, I’m going to check out those fonts that were recommended… but I’m ALSO going to post examples of what I mean on my blog, and then I’ll link to that. (Maybe it would be easier to just create the font. 😉 There are just too many identical aspects of the lettering that was used for such a long time, too many commonalities, for it to be either some kind of accident or 1,000,000 different independent creations. Of course they’re not independent. For one thing they’re all using capital letters from the Latin alphabet. They’re also cultural products of the same culture. You start a comic, you do the letters like the comics that have inspired you. But they’re also just what you’d except to get when someone writes capital letters with a thick pen, and avoids distracting or obscuring idiosyncrasies by making them as plain as possible. And they’re as different as you’d expect in that sort of setting. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802/40 "2013-02-11T22:07:16Z")
Honestly, it seems like someone is discovering the characteristics of _handwriting_ for the first time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-this-font-that-everybody-used-for-about-fifty-years/649802.md?page=3)