Comic Sans Background Information Vincent Connare, Microsoft Typography’s in-house type designer and proprietor of this fine establishment, shares some thoughts about the typeface. “In 1994 I noticed that a large number of cartoon/comic style software titles were under development at Microsoft. As Microsoft Creative Writer had a need for FUN fonts, I had an idea to make a lettering script similar to the lettering used by the major comic books.     There was a consistent style used in comics, which was quite unlike the style of lettering you see in newspaper cartoon strips. I also noticed that many people were inappropriately using drafting lettering in comic speech balloons.     I started to make the font in October 1994. Initially it was picked up by the team working on Microsoft 3D Movie Maker for use in speech balloons. As 3D Movie Maker progressed, the programmers added sound so the that the characters didn’t use balloons. However, the regular weight was still used for help pop-ups and dialog boxes.     Because the regular weight was cleanly hinted for the screen it was also included with the Windows 95 OEM version, the Windows 95 Plus pack, Publisher and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Hope you find the font fun.”

Using Comic Sans MS in your pages Using Comic Sans within your own Web pages is as easy as rounding up the usual suspects. Simply enclose any text you want to be displayed in Comic Sans with the following HTML tags. To switch on Comic Sans use <FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS"> and to switch it off use the familiar </FONT>. You can, of course, combine the FACE attribute with the COLOR and SIZE attributes. Alternatively you can use Cascading Style Sheets to specify the typeface. Don’t worry if some of your readers are using browsers which do not support the FONT FACE tag. These browsers will ignore the code and display text using their default typeface. Likewise, if a reader is using Microsoft Internet Explorer and doesn’t have the specified font installed a default will be used. They won’t see the page exactly as it was intended, but they’ll always have Paris. Once you start using Comic Sans you won’t be able to stop – this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Comic Sans at Various Sizes

7pt – From every corner of Europe, hundreds, thousands would rise to use our typefaces! 8pt – Yeah, I heard a rumor that those German letters of transit were set in Courier. 9pt – Of all the glyphs in all the fonts in all the world, she rasterizes mine... 10pt – When I was at the FUSE conference, were you lonely in Paris? 11pt – maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your type. 12pt – As long as I have those letters I will never be lonely. 14pt – Kiss me, kiss me as if it were the last Times. 16pt – Louis, are you pro Vichy, or free fonts? 24pt – Vive la Fonts! 28pt – Times goes by...