Kyklops Sans-Serif

So I'm reading a Wall Street Journal article about the much-maligned Comic Sans typeface and something strikes me as odd. I can't quite put my finger on it at first, but then I realize: Comic Sans looks just like my own printing--as opposed to cursive, style! (Well, when I'm trying to print "nicely," anyway.) Look:


In fact, it probably looks a lot like your own "nice" printing style. (Or at least it did until you got out of elementary school...)

Anyway, I don't really understand what all the fuss is about. I have yet to see a novel or newspaper or magazine or any other "serious" literature published in Comic Sans. In fact, as a guy who needs to wear glasses when he's reading, I'd say that Comic Sans is one of the most readable typefaces I've come across. Big and blocky, with none of that annoying curly stuff that makes most text so blurry to my aging eyes--what's not to like? And if I think back to a time before I needed glasses, I imagine all those monotonous pages of Latin I had to translate back in university. If there is a more dull-looking language on the printed page than Latin, I don't know what it is. How much more fun reading Virgil would have been if the text had been in Comic Sans!

Behold:

Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit
litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram;
multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem,
inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum,
Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae.
Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso,
quidve dolens, regina deum tot volvere casus
insignem pietate virum, tot adire labores
impulerit. Tantaene animis caelestibus irae?

Pretty lame, eh? Now check this out:

Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit
litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram;
multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem,
inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum,
Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae.
Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso,
quidve dolens, regina deum tot volvere casus
insignem pietate virum, tot adire labores
impulerit. Tantaene animis caelestibus irae?

Damn, the words almost leap off the page (er, screen)! It almost translates itself!

And they called me a Philistine...