Fonts

[Perdire]

One of these fonts is evil.
One of these fonts is used in my webcomic.

My question; Are they too alike?

[Swiftbow]

I like Comic Sans. It's clear and readable. And isn't that the whole point?

Those do look very similar though, apart from the italics.

[SevenCurrents]

Honestly, the font hate/love is a silly argument in my eyes. If people are distracted or focusing on your font rather than the words they are saying, either 1)Your comic is not entertaining them properly or 2)They are some kind of font activist or 3)The font is distracting and abrasive and difficult to read. Usually, the third isn't a problem you face with comic sans, though the first two seem to happen all too often.

Should you use comic sans? ~shrug~ That's up to you and your work. There is no real reason to not use it, nor is there really a reason to choose to use it. Go for what feels right.

Are the fonts you presented the same? Almost certainly yes, just slightly italicized.

[BionicDance]

Are the fonts you presented the same? Almost certainly yes, just slightly italicized.

If you look at the upper-case 'I', it's clear that one font is serif and the other san-serif...

[SevenCurrents]

Are the fonts you presented the same? Almost certainly yes, just slightly italicized.

If you look at the upper-case 'I', it's clear that one font is serif and the other san-serif...

Again, I don't get the need to specify font knowledge. I can draw apple with a stem or without, but at the end of the day it looks like an apple. These fonts are the same for all practical purposes.

[BionicDance]

Actually, it has been shown that serif versus sans serif fonts carry different emotional value, different mise en scene.

Serif fonts tend to imply a more old-world feel, while sans serif tend to be more modern and technological. Those are by no means hard-and-fast rules--no more than anything else in art is--but it cannot be discounted as irrelevant, either. They may effectively be the same purely from the standpoint of information content, but emotionally/viscerally, they are different beasts altogether.

To use your apple analogy, let's care less about the stems and look more at the difference between a Red Delicious and a Granny Smith; that is the kind of difference that serif and san serif can make to a piece. Truly.

[VinnieD]

Well there are some other uses for fonts. Comic sans consumes a lot of space, making it difficult to do anything but sound effects or very short exclamations with it. As much as it's frowned on I prefer Times New Roman. It reads easily and uses space efficiently. Though after some suggestions I switched to a variant called Decomposing Roman, that has a bit of a broken typewriter look to it, which I think better conveys the feel of my own comic.

Sometimes changing a font for different characters can help to show that they speak differently, but too drastic of a change, especially if the font is hard to read or highly stylized can be jarring causing the loss of suspension of disbelief. I don't use that method myself, rather I prefer to use different style balloons.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

Sometimes changing a font for different characters can help to show that they speak differently, but too drastic of a change, especially if the font is hard to read or highly stylized can be jarring causing the loss of suspension of disbelief. I don't use that method myself, rather I prefer to use different style balloons.

I can't remember the name of the comic because I don't think I ended up looking at it for very long for whatever reason, but I know I've seen at least one where every character had their own font and text color. Seemed cool, although I could see difficulties with perpetuating it in the long run.

[Mercury Hat]

Sounds like Cat Legend.

Don't forget that typography/lettering should be as much a part of your art as the actual drawings. Pick something that complements what you're trying to do with the comic itself.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

That was it.

[Wendybird]

If you are using the fonts in lower case, I would say they're probably both fine. As I understand it, the main problem with Comic Sans is its inconsistent spacing in all uppercase. As the other sample isn't in all uppercase, I can't tell if it has the same problem.

Also, these are both sans-serif fonts (which I prefer for most comics). Again, for a lower case use, both the straight and serifed i's are fine, but in most comic fonts meant for use as all uppercase, there will be a straight i for normal use and a serifed i for instances where it would be uppercase.