
Comic Sans, meet Comic Neue - calibwam
http://comicneue.com/
======
Intermernet
Just a quick note to the authors:

To test every letter in the English Language Alphabet use _The quick brown fox
jumps over the lazy dog_ , and not _The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy
dog_.

Otherwise you miss the _s_.

EDIT: Some fun reading
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pangrams](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pangrams)

~~~
blt
I really like InDesign's _Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow!_

~~~
izolate
I'm partial to _Foxy diva Jennifer Lopez wasn 't baking my quiche._

------
malanj
I agree with this ([http://www.snapily.com/blog/comic-sans-why-all-the-
hate/](http://www.snapily.com/blog/comic-sans-why-all-the-hate/)) and
specifically the comment by the creator of Comic Sans: “If you love it, you
don’t know much about typography,” Mr. Connare says. But, he adds, “if you
hate it, you really don’t know much about typography, either, and you should
get another hobby.” This meme was become a bit tiresome imho.

~~~
rainedin
That's funny. I've always found it very readable. I have also ridiculed it in
the past. Probably unfairly. These days I actually have a soft spot for the
font.

I really like the update.

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
For years Comic Sans has been recognized as being one of the most readable
fonts. It even is considered to be a preferred font for those dealing with
dyslexia
([http://www.luzrello.com/Publications_files/assets2013.pdf](http://www.luzrello.com/Publications_files/assets2013.pdf)).

This seems to be a classic case of form vs. function.

~~~
judk
_Unreadable_ fonts are preferred for dyslexic readers, because the
uncomfortableness of the font inhibits scanning (error-prone for dyslexics)
and promotes reading-letter-by-letter. So there is a tension.

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1_player
As a programmer, I really love Cosmic Sans Neue Mono (which I don't think is
related to this typeface) -- now renamed to Fastasque Sans Mono:

[https://github.com/belluzj/fantasque-
sans](https://github.com/belluzj/fantasque-sans)

You either hate it or love it, and I find it gorgeous on Sublime Text.

~~~
philh
The v/ν similarity is bringing up unpleasant memories of squinting at
blackboards containing both those symbols, as well as u and μ for good
measure.

But mostly, I think that font looks pretty nice.

~~~
bsimpson
I can't tell the difference between the v/v in your comment.

~~~
theIV
The second one is a lowercase nu.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nu_(letter)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nu_\(letter\))

------
computer
> "Download Comic Neue, free for a limited time"

What does that mean? There's no real license information anywhere.

~~~
da4c30ff
An honest question: Isn't it that in some legal systems, an absence of license
means public domain?

~~~
slashdotaccount
Most of the world implemented the Berne Convention, which creates a thing
called "copyright". In the world of copyright, absence of license means all
rights reserved, except for "fair use", "fair dealing" and similar exceptions.
In the world outside copyright law everything is in the public domain, no
licenses necessary.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention)

~~~
sp332
The Berne Convention didn't invent copyright.

~~~
schme
I don't think that was ever implied.

~~~
sp332
Well, you can have copyright without declaring that everything is copyrighted
when it is created. A lot of countries had systems like that until they
ratified the Berne Convention.

------
freshyill
You know, there are, and _have been_ many, many _good_ comic fonts out there.
Blambot sells them gives many others away for free. This is where _actual
comic book creators_ go for fonts.

Anytime I see someone insisting on using Comic Sans, I gently inform them that
Comic Sans isn't even a good comic font, and point them to Blambot, where they
can get better ones.

[http://blambot.com](http://blambot.com)

~~~
GFischer
Really cool, thanks for sharing. Now I must think of where can I use those
fonts :) (not in the company website, surely :P )

~~~
MartinCron
I tend to use comic or handwriting fonts for annotated screenshots when
explaining visual or UI/UX things to people. It makes the distinction between
the screenshot and my annotations sharper.

There, now you have an excuse.

~~~
pestaa
Nice tip, thanks.

------
craigrozynski
Hi

You will notice some issues if you use Windows Chrome, which doesn't render
TTF well, particularly italics and obliques.

The fix for this is to include SVG font files. I excluded SVG as they're
'advertised' as only existing to support legacy iOS. Today I found out that's
not entirely the case.

As for licensing, I provide the files for free for now and state on the site
'No attribution acquired'. I'm being vague because at this point I'm undecided
whether to start selling it or not.

Thanks :D

~~~
idlewan
I would have appreciated if people in general chose a license before releasing
font files.

Right now, I have no idea if I'm able to use the font for a website or for a
mobile application. You may provide _.woff and_ @font-face _.css_ , but you
don't explicitly say that redistribution through @font-face is allowed. I also
have no idea if I can embed the font in a mobile application
(phonegap/cordova) through @font-face.

That's what bugs me when designers provide 'for free' font files on a behance
page, and what is also the case here: I am explicitly authorized to install
the file locally, sometimes I am explicitly authorized to use it for
'commercial projects', and almost never am I explicitly allowed to
redistribute it (which renders possible to use it on a website with @font-face
or in a mobile or desktop app). As a developer, that sucks. That makes it seem
like the 'free font' is for designers only (in the sense of: people that will
only use the font to make an image, not a document, not a program).

These problems are of course already solved by the SIL open font license
([http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=OFL_web](http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=OFL_web)):
with fonts released under this license, I am able to fix problems with the
font (kerning etc...), I am able to redistribute it (@font-face, embed) AND
the original designer is protected from people who want to sell the font ("The
OFL allows the licensed fonts to be used, studied, modified and redistributed
freely as long as they are not sold by themselves.").

If you want to sell the font, go ahead and do it! However, promoting it here
as _free font for a limited time_ to a crowd of people who have a good chance
of being developers, well...

~~~
idlewan
I see you have updated the page and chosen to release the font in the public
domain.

That's really cool! Thanks!

------
r12e
I've always loved comic sans, it's like a family Labrador that just wants to
have fun.

When more discerning people around me criticise it, I send them off to read:
[http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-comic-sans-
asshole](http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-comic-sans-asshole)

Thanks for the refresh, OP. I can't wait to see where I can sneak this in.

------
coffeecodecouch
First thoughts: I like it, it will be interesting to see what the typography
community has to say. Slightly off topic, but it's funny how Comic Sans, a
font, has become so widely hated and mocked even among non-tech savvy people.
There seems to be a tipping point where something becomes _cool_ to hate. It's
absolutely impossible nowadays to use Comic Sans, even if it's completely
appropriate for the situation, without being mocked by people who have never
used anything else but Times New Roman.

~~~
zokier
> without being mocked by people who have never used anything else but
> _Helvetica_.

ftfy. I find that unquestioning love for Helvetica and hate for Comic Sans go
hand in hand.

~~~
fhars
I really should get that T-shirt I have been thinking about, with "Helvetica!"
written on it in Comic Sans.

~~~
ajanuary
I made one with Helvetica written in arial. I always find it interesting to
see who picks up on it, but I haven't quite worked out if that makes me like
them more or less.

~~~
StavrosK
Can someone tell me why people scoff at the use of Arial or Verdana or
whatever? Helvetica and Arial look extremely similar, what's the problem?

~~~
mansr
Arial is a sloppy-looking knockoff of Helvetica. It's the typographical
equivalent of fake designer clothes.

There's nothing inherently wrong with using Verdana as a screen font.

~~~
ceejayoz
> It's the typographical equivalent of fake designer clothes.

So... perfectly fine for most people?

------
_ak
People keep listing alternatives, here's another one: Comic Jens.
[http://www.netzallee.de/extra/comic-jens-
en](http://www.netzallee.de/extra/comic-jens-en)

It's even CC-licensed.

------
Wohui
_" The squashed, wonky, and weird glyphs of Comic Sans have been beaten into
shape while maintaining the honesty that made Comic Sans so popular."_

It's half as honest. It's dilute Comic Sans. It's the diet coke of casual.

------
BasDirks
The kerning is sloppy, see "f ox".

~~~
craigrozynski
Windows Chrome appears to be ignoring the kerning tables in the True Type
files, as 'fox' appears fine (for me) on everything else I'm testing on. If
I've missed something please let me know.

~~~
antihero
Looks completely off in Chrome on Linux, too.

~~~
mansr
Chrome seems to ignore all kerning on all platforms. Firefox does a much
better job.

------
ChrisNorstrom
Beautiful. Friendly. Human. More readable. You've redeemed one of the most
hated fonts. You might want to fix up a few kerning issues and re-release but
overall I love it. Feels friendly and personable.

If you can do the same with Papyrus you will be knighted.

~~~
mansr
Then all we'll need is a pair of augmented reality glasses that replace
Papyrus when looking at restaurant menus.

------
binarymax
This is headed in the right direction - but certain things still make the text
look not quite right. The angle on some of the vertical lines is still off,
giving an unsettling effect, and the curve on 'C/c' need to be smoothed out a
bit. Now the next step is to write a worm that replaces comic sans with this
on all machines.

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zokier
I think this is too regular/rigid to be true replacement to Comic Sans.

------
dghf
"... perfect ... for ... writing passive aggressive office memos."

Marvellous.

~~~
wsc981
I think this is going to be it's main selling point. I'm downloading the font
as we speak :)

------
ivanca
FYI "I-hate-comic-sans" is better and is permanently free:
[http://www.dafont.com/i-hate-comic-sans.font](http://www.dafont.com/i-hate-
comic-sans.font)

Also, Rondouillar:
[http://www.dafont.com/rondouillard.font?l[]=1](http://www.dafont.com/rondouillard.font?l\[\]=1)

------
factorialboy
Nice, a monospace variant would be awesome!

~~~
dghf
Perfect for dogescript
([https://github.com/remixz/dogescript](https://github.com/remixz/dogescript)).

------
BESebastian
"The squashed, wonky, and weird glyphs of Comic Sans have been beaten into
shape while maintaining the honesty that made Comic Sans so popular."

Doesn't this directly make Comic Neue inferior to Comic Sans for people with
dyslexia, one of the original fonts plus points.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
If your aim is to be friendly to people with dyslexia there are better fonts
than Comic Sans though.

~~~
BESebastian
True, but I don't believe there's a more dyslexia friendly font in standard
fonts which are available on more platforms.

Just a little gripe of mine, to be honest, but it's really one of the only
positive things to the font, and having it removed in the process of
attempting to improve the font is a bit funny to me.

------
skywhopper
Public domain license? Awesome! Typographers after my own heart. We need more
people to be willing to release their work into the public domain. I'd love to
see new open-source projects choose public domain over Apache- or BSD-style
permissive licenses.

------
lngric006
Who wants to break it to them that it should be jumps not jumped :)

------
akdetrick
Comic Sans does serve one good purpose; it's a dyslexia-friendly typeface.
It's nice that Comic Neue preserves some of the letter "hints" (ie. the "b"
and "d" glyphs have slightly different bottom terminals).

Although if you're trying to optimize specifically for dyslexia, you'd be
better off with something like OpenDyslexic [1].

[1] - [http://opendyslexic.org/about/](http://opendyslexic.org/about/)

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davexunit
Proprietary font? No, thanks.

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Pxtl
It's bikeshedding since I know nothing about design, but I feel like the name
is a bad fit. Comic Sans looks more like a comic speech-bubble script than
Comic Neue. Comic Neue looks like a better hand-printed font, but it would
look worse in a speech bubble.

~~~
gahahaha
It might not be a better alternative to Comic Sans for /that/ particular use
case - but for most situations where Comic Sans is used today, Comic Neue
would be an enormous improvement.

~~~
Pxtl
Yes, but it's a bit of a misnomer, isn't it? I mean, it's not really _Comic_
Neue is it? You wouldn't use this for an actual comic.

~~~
chc
You wouldn't use Comic Sans for an actual comic either, so I guess it's kind
of a wash.

------
symmetricsaurus
The oblique versions don't work on Windows(7). The letter shapes are severely
deformed and the sizes are all over the place.

Otherwise I think it could be a usable font (if not for the prevailing opinion
about comic sans).

~~~
craigrozynski
Hi, funny someone reported that issue about 6 hours ago. I re-upped the font
files and it's looking fine for me now on Win 7, can you confirm?

~~~
symmetricsaurus
I have tried downloading it again and it still looks bad when previewing the
font.

In Word it looks ok but I'm not sure if selecting Comic Neue and italics will
use the oblique version or not?

The oblique *.ttf files where last modified March 14 in the file I downloaded.

------
kalms
I really like it, although the kerning definitely needs some fine tuning, as
others have already mentioned. I have a hard time seeing it catching on
though, but I hope I'm wrong! Good job!

------
MCarusi
I've never had a reason to use Comic Sans in any particular project, but the
way people talk about it you'd think it was a mass murderer. It's just a
typefont, guys.

------
aaronetz
Slightly off-topic, but can someone recommend a good book about typography? I
mean more about the history of typography, less about how to design new fonts.

~~~
mattlutze
An excellent read is Bringhurst's "The Elements of Typographic Style"[0], for
both history and theory.

0: [http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Typographic-Style-Robert-
Brin...](http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Typographic-Style-Robert-
Bringhurst/dp/0881792063)

~~~
elektronaut
And for the prose as well. My favourite quote:

“A man who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep, Frederic Goudy
liked to say. If this wisdom needs updating, it is chiefly to add that a woman
who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep as well.”

------
currysausage
What is "Comic Neue" supposed to mean?

It's "Neue Helvetica", not "Helvetica Neue". It's only called "Helvetica Neue"
in lists for the sake of alphabetical sorting.

German "Neue" always stands before the noun. "New Helvetica" -> "Neue
Helvetica". The generic form is "Neu", so "Helvetica New" -> "Helvetica Neu".

~~~
talmand
You're assuming too much. It doesn't have to mean anything; the creator of a
font can name it whatever they wish.

~~~
currysausage
It's obviously a reference to "Neue Helvetica", and that is the font's name,
not "Helvetica Neue", as too many people seem to believe. Just wanted to point
that out.

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Tloewald
The metrics on this font are a bit weird. E.g. as the type gets bolder it
seems to tighten up vertically.

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notindexed
that kern ing

~~~
p4bl0
That keming.

------
duongkai
It does not support unicode characters.

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stuaxo
But does it work well in comics ?

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sevkih
should've made it a banana stand, there is always money in the banana stand

------
joshdance
I like it.

