Comic Sans Immolates Gotham, Helvetica

Last month, the Wire put a spotlight on Great Literature Retitled to Boost Website Traffic, a humor piece by the blogger Mike Lacher that appeared on the site of brainy literary publisher McSweeney's. This week, Lacher is at it again, dreaming up a profane, hilarious declamatio in the voice of the Comic Sans typeface.

Comic Sans is one of the least-loved fonts of our time, as even a cursory Internet search will make clear: the first result in Google for "comic sans" is the Ban Comic Sans Web site, and that's followed in short order by all manner of opprobrium. Yet in Lacher's imagination, the typeface is unapologetic:

You don't like that your coworker used me on that note about stealing her yogurt from the break room fridge? You don't like that I'm all over your sister-in-law's blog? You don't like that I'm on the sign for that new Thai place? You think I'm pedestrian and tacky? Guess the fuck what, Picasso. We don't all have seventy-three weights of stick-up-my-ass Helvetica sitting on our seventeen-inch MacBook Pros. Sorry the entire world can't all be done in stark Eurotrash Swiss type. Sorry some people like to have fun.

Especially noteworthy here: McSweeney's sets nearly all of its Web site content in Garamond (and does the same across the majority of its Web and print platforms), yet Lacher's piece appears in the very same belligerent, self-adoring font that serves as the narrator. Maybe an editor somewhere was swayed by Lacher's argument:

I'm fun. I'm the life of the party. I bring levity to any situation. 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.