Bubbles and Fonts - oh my!

[Herschel Dirtwater]

Hey there. I've got a comic strip in development right now that I'll be putting online here and I've got a few decisions to make regarding fonts and speech bubbles. Please see the sample strip below (and disregard the art as it is also in the experimental stage). I think I am leaning toward panel 4 but I still like the no-speech-bubble style. I think I like the panel 4 font as well, although panel 3 is a close second (will match the art style and themes of the strip a little better I think).

Any comments/suggestions/emotional outbursts would be appreciated.

HD

[Killbert-Robby]

As long as its not Comic Sans, I'll let anything fly.

[Herschel Dirtwater]

How 'bout if I use "I Hate Comic Sans" instead? j/k

HD

[Phalanx]

Even comic sans can work for a comic if the art style matches it. There is not set rule.

I like 4, it matches your style best. But would it be possible to make it slightly stronger?

[Killbert-Robby]

Even comic sans can work for a comic if the art style matches it. There is not set rule.

I like 4, it matches your style best. But would it be possible to make it slightly stronger?

It really really can't. Comic Sans is just too overused. The first cartoonist who invented the font, ok, the second, alright, ripping him off. When every preschooler trying to write something funny does it in Comic Sans, it's a font that no serious cartoon artist should ever use.

[Herschel Dirtwater]

I agree about the Comic Sans thing. IMHO no new webcomic should use a font that comes packaged w/windows. It's just too synthetic looking. I've picked a good font I found online which looks a little like panel four, but is a little darker and a little more random looking. Now comes the fun part - designing the pages - with all the html and css and all that @#$! that I don't know....

HD

[Lianweijun086]

I kind of like the font in 3, but it's a little too squished. Overall, I think 4 looks the best, but it might look even better with a slightly thicker border. Just my 2 cents!

[Phalanx]

Even comic sans can work for a comic if the art style matches it. There is not set rule.

I like 4, it matches your style best. But would it be possible to make it slightly stronger?

It really really can't. Comic Sans is just too overused. The first cartoonist who invented the font, ok, the second, alright, ripping him off. When every preschooler trying to write something funny does it in Comic Sans, it's a font that no serious cartoon artist should ever use.

*chuckle* If that's the case Digital Strip or Manga Temple would be suffering the same fate I think.

For every rule there is an exception that disproves it. I have tried and successfully pulled off using Comic Sans before, but I capitalized everything and tweaked the spacing and justification. Once that was done it actually looked surprisingly decent and most people who saw it would not have recognized it as Comic sans.

So I still hold to what I said... it can be done with the right matching style.

As to why I wanted to use Comic Sans when I had about a bajillion other fonts at my disposal, let's just say occasionally I challenge myself to do stupid things just to see if I can

[SevenCurrents]

I've been tempted to use brail font, but as they say: ... . .. ..... .. ... . ... !

On the OP topic, any advice concerning bubbles for those of us new-to-the-format? I've played around with circles, squares, odd shapes, strokes and more and still can't seem to find something that feels right.

[Leafa]

I like the fourth one best. I think it would look even better if you could find a version of it that wasn't italics.
The only other thing I'd say is that it might look better the tail was pointing in the direction of the character's mouth in that panel. I'm really sensitive to that after I noticed a few places in my own comic where I had tails pointing in really confusing directions, so now I always double check!

[JadeAisha]

I agree, I like the fourth, but the whole thing looks nice.

[HerschelDirtwater]

Again, thanks to all for the input. I'm pretty well set on what I'm going to do, and my activation email came today so I'm in the process of getting things going.

HD

[BionicDance]

I agree about the Comic Sans thing. IMHO no new webcomic should use a font that comes packaged w/windows. It's just too synthetic looking.

In my case, that was part of the appeal of the font. But then, I'm going for more of a "graphic novel" feel, AND my comic is set in a very technological future, so I think it works for me:



As to the OP, I think panels 2 and 4 have problems; the point of the bubble isn't pointing at the character at all. They look rather like they're pointing off to the side.
There'z no reason they have to point directly at the mouth, but somewhere toward the head to really sell who is speaking seems appropriate. I mean, yeah, it's pretty obvious, but...well, I find it distracting, anyway...

[W M]

I also like panel 4's text the most, but I feel that the bubble needs a thicker outline--right now, it doesn't appear to match the comic's graphical style.