“It’s like, ‘Not only am I going to refuse to submit these documents, but I’m going to use a typeface that doesn’t submit to the solemnity of the law, and Congress and public institutions,” said Michael Bierut , a partner at the design firm Pentagram. “Or maybe he just likes Comic Sans. It’s hard to say. Few typefaces are this freighted with public opinion.”

But strongly held beliefs can be unifying. Holly Combs, 43, fell in love with her husband, David Combs, 20 years ago over their shared contempt for Comic Sans.

“He told me it was his goal to learn every typeface, and I was like, ‘That’s so sexy,’” Ms. Combs said. When a local art gallery gave her a work assignment in Comic Sans, the pair bonded over their mutual distaste for what they deemed the “least thoughtful” font. “He was like, ‘What if we ban Comic Sans?’ and I said, ‘Wow, we’re spending the rest of our lives together.’”

The pair went so far as to publish an anti-Comic Sans manifesto online and began selling a line of products. They affixed stickers to walls and billboards around their hometown boasting the slogan: “Ban Comic Sans.”

Born in October 1994, Comic Sans would now be eligible for its quarter-life crisis — if it hadn’t spent its first 25 years in an identity crisis. The idea for the font came when Mr. Connare was helping to develop an easy-to-use operating system for Microsoft. While sketching a talk bubble for “a cute little yellow dog,” Mr. Connare had an epiphany: “Dogs don’t talk in Times New Roman!” He decided the program needed a new font, zanier and more childlike, for which he took inspiration from comic books and graphic novels.