The war on Comic Sans continues with the latest salvo fired across the pond by the Guardian. There, Dan Hancox argues that there are more important issues to worry about than a font. Indeed. And yet I can’t help but leap into the fray.

Comic Sans is, let’s be honest, aesthetically null. It’s a faux-jaunty, watered-down typeface, a corporation's idea of informal joviality. It's the Hawaiian-Shirt Friday of fonts. It’s a bad joke. (“Comic Sans walks into a bar, and the bartender says, ‘We don’t serve your type.’”)

The font was invented in 1994 by Vincent Connare for a software package called Microsoft Bob (which is included in Time magazine's list of the fifty worst inventions of all time, along with Agent Orange). Connare, thinking that Times New Roman, everyone's go-to font, was rather schoolmarmish, designed a new font based on the speech bubbles in comic books. Now Connare sympathizes somewhat with the Comic Sans haters, telling the Wall Street Journal, "If you love it, you don't know much about typography."

What sets Comic Sans apart from equally egregious fonts like Curlz MT? Comic Sans is widely and seriously used in astoundingly inappropriate settings. You might forgive its presence on a flier for a church picnic, but on an open letter from Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cleveland Caveliers, to the team’s fans, about LeBron James's defection? On the other hand, it was the perfect font for a 2004 special-edition twenty-five-cent coin put out by the Canadian Mint, which featured a goofy-looking caribou.

These obviously incongruous uses make Comic Sans a rich mine for comedy. There is the unavoidable “Hitler Downfall” video, in which the S.S. suggests Comic Sans for a recruiting poster. McSweeney's ran an imaginary monologue by the font (and in it) in which Comic Sans sounds almost as irritating as it looks:

Sorry the entire world can't all be done in stark Eurotrash Swiss type. Sorry some people like to have fun. Sorry I'm standing in the way of your minimalist Bauhaus-esque fascist snoozefest. Maybe sometime you should take off your black turtleneck, stop compulsively adjusting your Tumblr theme, and lighten the fuck up for once. People love me. Why? Because I'm fun… Need to soften the blow of a harsh message about restroom etiquette? SLAM. There I am. Need to spice up the directions to your graduation party? WHAM. There again. Need to convey your fun-loving, approachable nature on your business' website? SMACK. Like daffodils in motherfucking spring.

Comic Sans is that rare thing: something we've hated so much for so long that it’s become rather dear to us. And it is not without its positive uses. Comic Sans is often much easier for dyslexics to read than other fonts, and studies show that it's easier to learn and recall complex information printed in it. So perhaps we should redirect our vitriol toward a another typeface. Papyrus, maybe?

(Photograph via: Monsieur Poulet.)