When two fonts love each other very much...

March 27, 2015 10:50 AM

Move over Brangelina. And Bennifer. And Kimye, TomKat*, and Desilu. And sporks. And ligers. EVERYONE MOVE OVER! We're making room for the world's first genetically engineered superfont.

Comic Papyrus is finally here.

Comic Sans and Papyrus previously.

*Bonus not really TomKat related video.

posted by sparklemotion (39 comments total)

I love that the first comment is "What have you done?"
posted by maxsparber at 10:53 AM on March 27, 2015 [8 favorites]

Surely, we live in the End of Days.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:53 AM on March 27, 2015 [8 favorites]

"And when the Lamb opened one of the seals, he beheld that the font that was written thereon was Comic Papyrus."
posted by BrashTech at 10:55 AM on March 27, 2015 [25 favorites]

it hits the eyes like fine sandpaper.
posted by The Whelk at 10:57 AM on March 27, 2015 [15 favorites]

To me this is a lazy take on a funny concept. It really doesn't capture Papyrus's awkward thinness in places, or Papyrus's weird midline. It is really just Comic Sans with a texture.
posted by matcha action at 11:01 AM on March 27, 2015 [63 favorites]

Finally!
posted by mazola at 11:02 AM on March 27, 2015

But it doesn't really have any of the attributes of Papyrus besides the pseudo-antiquing? Seems like a concept gag for non-type-geeks, more than an actual type in-joke.
posted by RogerB at 11:02 AM on March 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

So, a slightly distressed Comic Sans? Sorry to pooh-pooh, but this isn't as much as I was led to believe.
posted by rhizome at 11:02 AM on March 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

So, a slightly distressed Comic Sans?

Comic Sans can't get distressed enough for me.
posted by Gelatin at 11:04 AM on March 27, 2015 [6 favorites]

To me this is a lazy take on a funny concept. So, a slightly distressed Comic Sans? But it doesn't really have any of the attributes of Papyrus besides the pseudo-antiquing?

I had these same reservations, and then I realized that I was getting upset about this joke about bad fonts being a bad font and it became metafunny, and I had to show metafilter.
posted by sparklemotion at 11:05 AM on March 27, 2015 [54 favorites]

I just believe if you're going to spend the time and effort to make a joke font, you should do it right. Even if 'right' means 'very, very wrong'.
posted by matcha action at 11:07 AM on March 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

This delighted/horrified me.

Comic Sans apparently DID get hammed with Papyrus.
posted by chatongriffes at 11:09 AM on March 27, 2015 [7 favorites]

Two horrible tastes that taste horrible together!
posted by Lemmy Caution at 11:10 AM on March 27, 2015

It just seems kind of, I don't know, The Oatmealesque, like a rote performance constructed for maximal packing of nerd-pandering SEO keywords. What would happen if bacon met The Avengers? Next up: we made a LEGO model of an Apple Watch running a Dr. Who app with special guest star George Takei, who fucking loves science!
posted by RogerB at 11:14 AM on March 27, 2015 [20 favorites]

damn! too late to the comic san hate fest post. Here is my contribution:

There's actually statistical evidence that Comic Sans is killing the environment
posted by TheLittlePrince at 11:14 AM on March 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

I am still searching for that font that Lawrence Lessig uses on his powerpoints which looks like some testosterone fueled angry professor stabbing with his chalk onto a blackboard. (I am sure it isn't called roid-rage sans.)
posted by bukvich at 11:14 AM on March 27, 2015

If you're going to try to do comedy, you might as try to do it well.
posted by rhizome at 11:15 AM on March 27, 2015

Can anyone identify the font used for the tagline on the image ("the culmination of 10,000 years of typography")? Cuz I like that kickin'-it leg on the R.
posted by chavenet at 11:22 AM on March 27, 2015

If you're going to try to do comedy, you might as try to do it well.

You know what's the secret to great font comedy?







Kerning.
posted by chavenet at 11:23 AM on March 27, 2015 [36 favorites]

More like sans comedy, ayup?
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:25 AM on March 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

I wonder how long this will stay up before the dude gets a C&D from Microsoft (Comic Sans or Monotype (Papyrus). A fun joke is one thing, but selling a derivative of a typeface and using the same name is not exactly legal.
posted by Typographica at 11:25 AM on March 27, 2015

Quick, take this antidote!
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:26 AM on March 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Surely that punchline should be "keming", no?
posted by scrowdid at 11:41 AM on March 27, 2015 [21 favorites]

To the font nerds cribbing about how the joke was implemented lazily .... this is a big chance to do it properly and call it

papyrus sans
posted by TheLittlePrince at 11:50 AM on March 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Serifs are a recessive genetic trait, it seems.
posted by notyou at 11:50 AM on March 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

This isn't the omen of the apocalypse that you are looking for.👋
posted by blue_beetle at 11:51 AM on March 27, 2015

Yeah, yeah, but your designers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.
posted by MikeKD at 12:15 PM on March 27, 2015 [6 favorites]

I find it very surprising this post is the first with the fivedollarssameasintown tag. I applaud its use, though.
posted by Hamusutaa at 12:23 PM on March 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

There is an older version from last year done as a joke by Barth and Co. that definitely gets the weird "y" thing right.

It's interesting to note, that the creator of the previous version did it not as a lazy joke but as a means of saving time for lazy typographic nerds to save time when arguing over the worst fonts. I feel like the joke is on us.
posted by pmg at 1:17 PM on March 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

Hey, as long as they're not mixing serif and sans-serif typefaces. Because that's an abomination.



It's in the Bible, people!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:17 PM on March 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

To me this is a lazy take on a funny concept. It really doesn't capture Papyrus's awkward thinness in places, or Papyrus's weird midline. It is really just Comic Sans with a texture.

My thoughts exactly. Oh well, at least I'm disappointed.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 1:26 PM on March 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

So whimsical and light-hearted. The perfect thing for reminders to those certain individuals to clean up after themselves. I think we all know who they are.
posted by tigrrrlily at 1:42 PM on March 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is the font equivalent of Vanilla Ice covering a Nickleback song.
posted by 4ster at 1:48 PM on March 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

Papyrus must be stopped.

I work in Berkeley, California where it assaults me basically every 3rd shop, home, studio, dog park I pass.

I also agree this is a weak parody and I'm tempted to open fontographer and fix it for them.
posted by bobdow at 2:10 PM on March 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

To me this is a lazy take on a funny concept.

THAT'S THE JOKE

Seriously, not doing this the lazy way would be doing it wrong. There's nothing non-lazy about using either Comic Sans or Papyrus.
posted by straight at 5:27 PM on March 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Seriously, not doing this the lazy way would be doing it wrong.

On the other hand, the font world is pretty humorless anyway.
posted by rhizome at 8:48 PM on March 27, 2015

Seriously, not doing this the lazy way would be doing it wrong.

Doing this well, so that people actually started using the font because they like it would be ideal. Comic Papyrus, Papyrus Sans, ComiRus, Papy Mic Sansco, or so on should be awful, but also a tempting choice for those not in on the joke and those using it because they would 'never' use it.
posted by Hicksu at 9:45 PM on March 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Papy Mic Sansco made me laugh for 10 minutes straight. I would buy the shit out of a font with that name. I love it.
posted by Klaxon Aoooogah at 12:09 AM on March 28, 2015 [4 favorites]

It's horrible. I love it.
posted by bgal81 at 1:32 PM on March 28, 2015 [2 favorites]