[HN Gopher] Comic Mono ___________________________________________________________________ Comic Mono Author : lolinder Score : 552 points Date : 2023-06-13 16:01 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (dtinth.github.io) (TXT) w3m dump (dtinth.github.io) | takeda wrote: | Feels like Comic Sans is the Javascript of fonts. | baruchel wrote: | I have used Apl385 during a long time as my daily monospace font. | It shares some features with such font (probably why I don't use | it any longer!) https://vfoley.xyz/lesser-known-coding-fonts/ | whalesalad wrote: | not gonna lie this is awesome and i will take it for a spin today | before passing judgement. | | screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/jVeZKgh.png | | theme: | https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Whalesal... | adt2bt wrote: | I feel like generative AI interfaces should use a font like this | for code. It can give a subtle 'hmm maybe I should double check | this' vibe. | BugsJustFindMe wrote: | The i, l, and f serifs feel extremely non-comic to me. It's not | right if it's not sans. IMO https://www.dafont.com/pointfree.font | is a better monospace comic font. | stOneskull wrote: | i like pointfree very much. thank you. | mpsprd wrote: | I used to hate Comic Sans until a primary school teacher | explained to me it was used because the "a" is exactly the way | they teach how to write it. | seydor wrote: | I like this | | I always liked how legible comic sans is. I propose we try it on | HN for a week | davidy123 wrote: | And you think the reddit API protests are fierce. | agilob wrote: | All uppercase texts looks bad in a way I don't know how to | explain. There isn't enough space between letters and look like | uppercase letter are flowing above lowercase. Lowercase text I | can just scan and without reading and understand what's | happening, but uppercase letters in word "PERFORMANCE | ENVIRONMENT" look like they're two long letters I need to | visually investigate text. | | https://imgur.com/a/1IM2Vqn | | See the spacing between ME and ams. Lowercase letter look more | goofy, asymetrical. | awelxtr wrote: | Comic Mono crashes my Eclipse on Linux Mint Cinnamon | rafadc wrote: | I've been using Comic Code for a while for coding and it is the | best thing it ever happened to me professionally speaking. | | It teaches me not to take myself too seriously | davikr wrote: | Me too! Programming has never been as fun as it is nowadays. | geon wrote: | Exactly. Feels like a whiteboard. | | I've been using the normal Comic Sans for 3-4 years now. I | don't mind the non-monospaced-ness. | veeberz wrote: | I love Comic Code! First font I actually paid for. | ekam wrote: | If you like spins on Comic Sans, you may also | enjoy:https://comicneue.com/ | sweeter wrote: | If you like this font, you might also like Maple Mono NF. Its on | github as well, I find it really pleasing to look at and I use it | in all of my editors. | xyst wrote: | Thanks. Going to use this in my YC deck | Gnarl wrote: | [flagged] | 29athrowaway wrote: | I used to make fun of these fonts until I learned they are more | readable for people with dyslexia. | constantcrying wrote: | If you have dyslexia use a dyslexia font. | | Comic Sans is not a bad font, but people make fun of it because | it is used where it shouldn't be. (I blame WordArt and its | attitudes for most typography atrocities) | roywiggins wrote: | The evidence for dyslexia fonts is kinda bad. | | > Use of the OpenDyslexic font did not enhance text | readability or reading speed. The study participants strongly | preferred Verdana or Helvetica over the OpenDyslexic | alternative. | | https://blog.dyslexia.com/good-fonts-for-dyslexia-an- | experim... | constantcrying wrote: | Interesting. Is there evidence that Comic Sans works better | then dedicated dyslexia fonts? | roberthahn wrote: | I found it more readable for coding even though I don't have | dyslexia. Surprised me when I found that out. | NelsonMinar wrote: | Sadly this might not be true; most careful research on fonts | have shown that font choices does not help people with | dyslexia, even including fonts specifically designed for the | purpose. | | https://www.boia.org/blog/do-dyslexia-fonts-improve-accessib... | | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5629233/ | verse wrote: | [flagged] | globular-toast wrote: | Why is this forked from the original? The changes seem like | things that could have been submitted as pull requests. If the | original author rejected them then, sure, make a fork. But at | least submit it first. | petesergeant wrote: | I've been using the very similar Comic Code for several years, | and it consistently sparks joy when I open my editor. Highly | recommended. This looks marginally nicer and I'll give it a go | jedberg wrote: | I've kept my font in my messaging apps Comic Sans for years. It | turns out it's super readable when you're trying to read quickly, | due to all the letters looking so different. | | This font is nice, but it sort of "squares up" the letters to | make them more uniform, which arguably makes it less readable | compared to Comic Sans. | | It should be noted that Comic Sans is also the preferred font for | many dyslexics because of how readable it is. | | People hate it because it's overused, but it is actually a very | useful font. | jbverschoor wrote: | I actually like it a lot | shrimp_emoji wrote: | This is the title bar font I set for my windows on Linux. | crazygringo wrote: | I was curious why it seems so much nicer than Comic Sans (and | many commenters here seem to agree). | | Many of the letterforms have been dramatically "straightened" -- | a Comic Sans "m" is kind of hideous, with the three vertical | strokes intentionally all at different angles... whereas in this | one they're all essentially vertical. | | Comic Sans is ugly because it's _terribly_ proportioned | (intentionally) to mimic the way a child would write. But when | you straighten everything and the letters necessarily fit into a | grid... it 's just much, much nicer aesthetically. | | Just a gentle "handwriting mono" font, rather than the original | which is (again, intentionally) horribly kerned and where half | the letterforms feel like they're about to topple over from | imbalance. | brazzledazzle wrote: | I absolutely (irrationally, I admit) despise comic sans from a | purely personal aesthetic perspective but this does bug me less | which is saying a lot. | Kuraj wrote: | You're gonna love Comic Neue: https://comicneue.com/ | polpo wrote: | Reminds me of Apple's Chalkboard font, which basically fixes | everything that's off putting about Comic Sans while still | being casual and child-like: | http://www.identifont.com/differences?first=Chalkboard&secon... | behnamoh wrote: | It's beautiful! | nemetroid wrote: | I think Comic Code stays more true to the aesthetics of Comic | Sans. | | https://www.myfonts.com/collections/comic-code-font-tabular-... | bityard wrote: | > to mimic the way a child would write | | No, it was intended to mimic the style of comic book lettering, | hence the name. | | Part of the reason Comic Sans is reviled is because not only is | it a terrible font, but it is also a far cry from actual comic | book lettering. | crazygringo wrote: | No it wasn't, see my cousin comment. | nerdponx wrote: | I thought Comic Sans was meant to mimic the text in a comic | strip, not a child's handwriting. | wodenokoto wrote: | It is not modeled on children's handwriting but, as the name | implies, letters found in speech bubbles in comic books. | pessimizer wrote: | Except speech bubbles in comic books look a lot better and | more regular. | CharlesW wrote: | Also, "real" comic book fonts do exist: | https://www.comicbookfonts.com/ | crazygringo wrote: | If you look at the font, it's quite clearly extremely | "irregular" in a way that children's handwriting is, and | comic book speech bubbles very much _are not_ meant to be. | | Indeed, the creator used some comics as a starting point, but | then tried to redraw the strokes with a mouse (!), and | intentionally drew them wrong, not keeping them straight, | etc. | | So the goal was _not_ to reproduce comic speech bubbles at | all, but to create something instead "strange and | childlike". You would never want to use it for actual comic | book lettering. | | From an interview [1]: | | > _They wanted all kinds of fonts - a lot of them strange and | childlike. One program was called Microsoft Bob, which was | designed to make computers more accessible to children. I | booted it up and out walked this cartoon dog, talking with a | speech bubble in Times New Roman. Dogs don't talk in Times | New Roman! Conceptually, it made no sense._ | | > _So I had an idea to make a comic-style text and started | looking at Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, graphic novels | where the hand lettering was like a typeface... Instead, I | looked at various letters and tried to mimic them on screen. | There were no sketches or studies - it was just me drawing | with a mouse, deleting whatever was wrong._ | | > _I didn't have to make straight lines, I didn't have to | make things look right, and that's what I found fun. I was | breaking the typography rules. My boss Robert Norton, whose | mother Mary Norton wrote The Borrowers, said the "p" and "q" | should mirror each other perfectly. I said: "No, it's | supposed to be wrong!"_ | | [1] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/mar/28/how- | we-... | markandrewj wrote: | It seems like this isn't very well known, but the design of | Comic Sans is actually intended to help children with dyslexia. | The creator of Comic Sans also talks about this in his | lectures. Listening to him talk about the design of the | typeface changed my perception of it. | | Ref: Vincent Connare: Comic Sans is the Best Font in the World | https://youtu.be/xXdzBTeYZlE | | Ref: https://www.nothingcomicaboutdyslexia.com/ | tapland wrote: | Was it intended to? | | I know it's useful for dyslexics but I've not seen anyone | claim it was intentionally designed with that intent and I'm | pretty sure that has been explained to be a happy coincidence | in the past. | | Ref2 doesn't state that, and I can't do video right now. | | Edit: And neither does Ref1 | markandrewj wrote: | Thank you for the correction. I thought I had read it was | part of the initial design consideration at one point, but | reading about it further again, I think the discovery that | it helped dyslexic readers happened after the typeface was | made public. | | It is still an interesting aspect of the typeface that | doesn't get much attention though, although there are other | typefaces that also try to help with dyslexia. | | If you are interested in design, I still recommend watching | the talk when you have the time. It has been a while since | I watched it, but the designer is well spoken. | Phrodo_00 wrote: | There's a font called OpenDyslexic[1] that was actually | designed to do that | | [1] https://opendyslexic.org/ | michelb wrote: | Some info about these fonts here | https://www.edutopia.org/article/do-dyslexia-fonts- | actually-... | | Fwiw my dyslexic friends feel no benefit from these | fonts. Would love to hear other experiences. | markandrewj wrote: | It is a good question, I have read mixed reports about | the effectiveness as well. Besides specific typefaces, | there are also techniques like bionic reading. | | https://www.indwes.edu/adult-graduate/ng- | blog/stories/what-i... | | https://bionic-reading.com/ | | Sorry again, I thought I remembered the designer talking | about this in the video I referenced. I should have | watched it again before referencing it. | Paul-Craft wrote: | The story I've always heard (which is backed up by | Wikipedia) is that Comic Sans was designed for the speech | bubbles of characters in Microsoft Bob, to make them seem | less "formal" and more relatable. The fact that the | letterforms are "terribly proportioned," as u/crazygringo | says, is what actually makes the letters easier for | dyslexic people to distinguish. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Sans#History | anikom15 wrote: | Comic Sans is actually quite legible for its class and well- | hinted. It works better with antialiasing off. The main | criticism is in its overuse. | lucideer wrote: | Another notable deviation that may affect the aesthetic is that | it's been slightly seriffed (fIijl) for some reason. | SCdF wrote: | It's beautiful, like I really like it. Damn. | cloin wrote: | Am I supposed to hate this? Because I really really don't. | throw2022110401 wrote: | It's cool to not hate Comic Sans and it's brethren right now | but as an old school hater I know that our time will come | again. | | https://achewood.com/2007/07/05/title.html | medstrom wrote: | I like it too. Somehow more suitable for coding than Comic Sans | ever was for text. | coffeebeqn wrote: | It's just a much more polished font in general. Looks really | nice! | moffkalast wrote: | I have no strong feelings one way or the other. | darknavi wrote: | All I know is my gut says "Maybe". | kahnclusions wrote: | [flagged] | ComputerGuru wrote: | Crazy how much bigger a lowercase l is than a lowercase m in | order to fit into a single cell. | qbasic_forever wrote: | Fantasque Sans Mono is similar in spirit and works great for | coding too IMHO: https://github.com/belluzj/fantasque-sans/ Don't | knock it until you try it, it really looks nice for clean | languages without a lot of symbols, operators or noise. | whiskeytuesday wrote: | I installed it months ago as a joke and have been using it ever | since. Curly K master race. | spookie wrote: | I've been using it ever since I dropped mononoki. So, about 3 | years ago. Looks great, and quite readable for me. More so than | OP's. | | I think that it's due to the really tall x-height, and the fact | that letters sray 'in-line'. OP's 's' in particular goes | terribly below baseline. Not sure if using the proper term | here. | lofatdairy wrote: | Man I unironically love Fantasque Sans Mono (using it for | nearly 5 years now) and I'm so glad someone else also brought | this one up. Idk, I feel like Comic Sans hate was always a bit | much, even ironic hate, and I'm just glad to see another | typeface project inspired by it. | Semaphor wrote: | That actually looks more _normal_ than Cascadia Code [0] to me. | I'd say CC sits between Fantasque and Comic Mono in | _playfulness_ | | [0]: https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-code | argulane wrote: | I also quite like Fantasque Sans Mono. Few years ago they even | added programming ligatures support. Some like them but I | don't, so I keep using the previous 1.7.2 version of the font | that does not contain ligatures (not all programs allow | disabling ligatures). | kps wrote: | If you're up for building it yourself, delete | `update_features(fnt)` from `Scripts/fontbuilder.py`: | https://github.com/belluzj/fantasque- | sans/blob/996150820b98a... | nerdponx wrote: | I used this one for a long time, then switched to the Recursive | variable font. It also comes with several non-variable | alternatives (for editors that don't support variable which is | most of them) called "Rec Mono". I particularly enjoyed Rec | Mono Duotone. | ComputerGuru wrote: | The lowercase symbols are nice but ye god the uppercase Y and E | are basically unchanged from Comic Sans MS and give me PTSD. | ksaj wrote: | It looks cool, but one problem at least on my laptop screen | when looking at the small rendering, is that the l and i in the | word multi look too similar. I have to lean in to differentiate | them. It looks like multl to me. | | For the word split, it is easier to tell since they are side-b | by-each, but still weird to look at without zooming in. | | It's easy enough when either rendered as a larger font size, or | if you lean in. But when small, those two letters are | difficult. | otterpro wrote: | Fantasque Sans Mono is my favorite as well, and is the only | font I use for coding (in Vim, VScode, Ryder, etc...). The | slight hint of style makes it so easy to read, and not boring | (unlike other monospace fonts). It's free and good alternative | to Comic Code, which is not free. I don't like the loop on k, | so I use the version with non-looped k. Before it, I was on | Nanum Gothic, which had the ideal spacing/size for editor. | nomel wrote: | For me, it doesn't seem to matter which font I use, as long as | I keep using it for an extended period of time, then it become | the "easy to read" font. Some with line spacing, indentation, | etc. Then, anything else looks terrible. | | I wonder how much of font design is driven by each authors | "local indentation in the font space". What's the push to move | that indentation? | moonchrome wrote: | I have the opposite reaction - I switch fonts every now and | then because using a different font makes it more fun/feels | fresh. Likewise for color schemes. | dsr_ wrote: | Other than some of the funky capital letters, it's really not | bad. | throwaway106382 wrote: | I think this is a suprisingly pleasant font, but PragmataPro is | probably one of the best purchases I've ever made. | regulation_d wrote: | Same. At first, I thought PragmataPro was a little narrow, but | now that I grown accustomed to it, everything else feels | squatty or improperly kerned. | mhandley wrote: | Actually looks quite nice, but when I try it for coding I find it | a bit too dense, compared to Hack [0] which gets it just about | right for me. | | [0] https://sourcefoundry.org/hack/ | hk1337 wrote: | No ligatures yet? | | EDIT: | | Trying it out now, it's actually a lot nicer than I initially | thought. I had to bump the text size up which was already larger | than 14. | its-summertime wrote: | Mainly more referring to https://github.com/shannpersand/comic- | shanns, but the capital forms seem to very quickly leave a blocky | feel, e.g. IT visually combining, NE visually combining. I do | wonder if it would be possible to systematically adjust the | kerning, la using openCV or similar to detect such things. | rodolphoarruda wrote: | Once I turned 45 y.o. I began to have trouble reading anything | non serif and enjoy serif fonts. My eBook reader is set up with | Courier and it's a real joy for me. | | I do like this font Comic mono, though. A nice attempt to make a | mono type more organic and less machine made. | dang wrote: | Related: | | _Comic Mono - a legible monospace font_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27488524 - June 2021 (51 | comments) | | _Comic Mono_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25520510 - | Dec 2020 (216 comments) | throwkeys wrote: | No matter what the size is or the editor (Notepad/Sublime) the | top of characters - [], {} and () seems to be cut off on Windows | 11. Is it same for others? | cbsmith wrote: | "the very typeface you've been trained to recognize since | childhood" | | Man, I feel old. | king_magic wrote: | I don't hate it. It's actually really easy on the eyes. | slmjkdbtl wrote: | I use APL386 as my monospace font, has some comic vibe but looks | better imo. | | https://abrudz.github.io/APL386/ | [deleted] | arek_nawo wrote: | It looks nice. In general I have nothing against "Comic-family" | fonts. They look fun and unique. This certainly changes depending | on how much you use them (e.g. an entire page in Comic Sans is... | just comical. | | Applying the same logic to this font, I feel like it would look | good in stylized code snippets on a website, but I wouldn't use | it in my code editor. | mushufasa wrote: | I also really like Monaco! Classic in the same vein at least IMO | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monaco_(typeface) | foxandmouse wrote: | If you like that, a variant that I enjoy is Monolisa: | https://www.monolisa.dev | | I think it sits between the submitted font and Monaco in terms | of "seriousness". | alanh wrote: | Sorry, but in what sense are they in the same vein? | jnwatson wrote: | I first coded using Monaco some 38 years ago. Time flies. | riffraff wrote: | I love monaco and used it for years as my code font. I wish we | had Chalkboard[1] mono tho! | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalkboard_(typeface) | disruptiveink wrote: | My terminal always has to be Monaco 10. Without antialias on | non-HiDPI displays. | Semaphor wrote: | 217 comments end of 2020: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25520510 | | And I just installed selected this in Rider, I'll see how I feel | about it tomorrow while working. It doesn't look bad, but I think | I prefer Cascadia Code which also has a bit of playfulness. | petschge wrote: | Is there a nice screenshot that compares commonly confused glyphs | like 1, I, l or O, 0, O? | JohnDeHope wrote: | I legit use this font for work. It's a nice mono font. | shrikant wrote: | I really like, but now I'm wondering how much of this is because | of the beautiful colour palette on the blog. Does anyone know | what colour scheme is being used? | roughly wrote: | I wonder if I can enable this on a per-project basis. | | Or per function, depending on test coverage & code quality... | bee_rider wrote: | I've never seen a silly idea that I wanted more. | | Based on a skim of the write-up, it seems like the author | passed a respin of comic sans through a couple scripts, maybe | you could start from where they started and try to locate a | nice continuous "shittyness" knob to tune. | duskwuff wrote: | A variable font, but with a "comedy" axis that runs from | DejaVu Sans to Comic Sans. | catears wrote: | I've been using this as my standard font for maybe 1-2 years now | (no, I am not joking). While I don't think that the font is any | more legible than other fonts, the quirkiness and the character | of the font makes it rather enjoyable to look at. | | If legibility is an issue then I would seriously recommend | increasing the font size, I think that will do much more than | choice of "most optimal" font. And if increased font size makes | your code "harder to read", consider that someone else might be | unable to use a smaller font and will be forced to read code with | a larger font size. | film42 wrote: | Daily driver for me as well, but only for terminal. People | laugh sometimes while pair programming, but usually by the end | they begin to really like it. Can't use anything else at this | point. | samwillis wrote: | I'm so confused, I really REALY want to hate it, but think I love | it... | | I'm going to have to set it as my editor font and see how it | goes. | adastra22 wrote: | How does this differ from Comic Code, which I use as my main code | editor font? | falcor84 wrote: | You mean [0]? If so, the big difference I see is that this one | is free. | | [0] https://tosche.net/fonts/comic-code | adastra22 wrote: | That's the one, and fair enough. | paxys wrote: | Two tools that do the same thing are allowed to exist | simultaneously. | medstrom wrote: | Sure, but she just asked how it differs. I didn't read the | question as value-loaded. | lucideer wrote: | Apart from being free, the differences seem to be: | | - Comic Code is more heavily serifed - Comic Mono is "semi- | serif" (a balanced blend between serif mono fonts & the sans- | serif Comic Sans). Not sure why they both didn't go full sans- | serif: I generally prefer serif code fonts but of these two I | prefer the less seriffed variation, and Comic Sans literally | has Sans in the name. | | - Comic Code is more legible (for me) - the widths & kerning | seem to leave clearer letter separation with equivalent | character spacing. | | - Comic Mono has nicer kerning (to my eye) - while legibility | is a problem at small font-sizes, at larger font-sizes Comic | Mono is more pleasing to read. | stronglikedan wrote: | Maybe my eyes are just too old, but the kerning was killing | them. | WorldMaker wrote: | Just based on their READMEs it looks like: | | - Comic Mono was built by a Python script by a non-designer as | open source-ish | | - Comic Code was built by a font designer with commercial | intent | | - Comic Code includes more font variants (italics, ligatures) | lacy_tinpot wrote: | honestly looks super comfy | crickey wrote: | [flagged] | raydiatian wrote: | This belongs in a museum dedicated to crazy people ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-06-13 23:01 UTC)