I Hate Red Comedy Fonts.

I think it's not the red font that's the problem, it's the comedy pose on a white background. Once you have a white background red becomes the colour that stands out the most.

Somebody's showing early signs of turning into a werebull. Laugh now, but when you wake up naked, with a pierced septum and 2 holes in your favorite hat, you'll wish you payed attention to me.

It's... it's indescribably beautiful. Glorious, really.

I don't like quizzical stares on posters. I'm usually sharing them. It feels like, "Well, why don't you see my movie?"

Just for you, because I like ya:

http://www.comingsoon.net/imageGalle...3.jpg&id=18144

Edit: Ha! Two for one!

It's sad that some of the Chud Parody Posters made on MSPaint blow that bad Photoshopping job away.

Red font apparently equals comedies worse than the plague. I never noticed that before.

What's the marketing explanation for using some bulky red sans serif? It is as simple as it stands out reasonably well and is easy to read? Why only for comedies, then?

It's not the font that should be an issue of concern. It should be the shitty comedies that should be the issue of concern.

When people see red boldface all caps sans serif, they know exactly what flavor of dog food they're about to stuff into their faces. It's cheap, easy, doesn't require any actual artists to realize, is completely lacking in originality (a plus from the studio's perspective - originality is needlessly risky), and demands nothing of an audience other than a Pavlovian reaction to a specific style of graphic design. I fucking despise it so very, very much, because to me it is emblematic of the Grand and Glorious Dumbing Down of Fucking Everything.

Yes. Red text is ruining America.

Red sans serif block fonts are ruining America. Let's not not drag font/color combinations that never hurt anyone into this fracas.

So, which is worse, then? Red comedy fonts or Comic Sans MS?

Wow, you must have one the most easy going lives in existence to seriously bitch about fonts.

Ugh. Comic Sans by a mile, if only because it's the "hey, something fun is happening at work!" font every monkey uses on those damn fliers in the work breakroom.

I've always been partial to Verdana myself.

I've written screenplays in Verdana. I hate Courier.

Yeah... That's pretty bad.

And the posters themselves are shitty. But Comedy rarely has interesting posters. They just rely on goofy faces and smirks. And the red letters are supposed to heighten the comic effect.

I can't remember a single film in the comedy genre that had a good one-sheet.

I guess thrillers and action films lend themselves more easily to imaginative posters.

In the theater yesterday with a friend and I saw a big stand-up for How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, and my friend remarked out loud that it was the worst poster he's ever seen. Red letters, white background, people haphazardly strewn about.

I can't even imagine the person whose life is so easygoing that there's time to complain about people complaining about lousy art design in movie posters, on a website dedicated to discussing films and the general culture thereof. I propose we change the subject to nuclear disarmament at once.

Good (mainstream) comedy posters, well NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION, GHOSTBUSTERS, and the UK posters for SHAUN OF THE DEAD come immediately to mind. LOST IN AMERICA I seem to remember having a great poster. Woody Allen's UA and Orion films tended to have very good, occasionally iconic poster art - once he moved on to Sony, Miramax, and Dreamworks he got typically shitty posters all of a sudden. Don't recall how New Line promoted Deconstructing Harry, but that was probably a shitty poster as well.

Spike and Reggie... Good points.

And I'm pretty sure Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express will have good one sheets as well.

I almost stand corrected. But you have to admit it's rare nowadays.

It was better in the 80's. Lost in America has a great poster. One of my favorites.

(The film is terrific as well... You point and say the bird lives in a round stick. And you have things over easy with toast. I've seen the future and it's a bald man from New York!)

After a 5 minute search...



Yeah, it's an epidemic of creative bankruptcy. But sadly, it doesn't seem to matter these days. It's not like there's a burning need to come up with the UNFORGIVEN of comedy key art.

I actually think there is a burning need, aesthetically. I, speaking as The Customer, demand better, god damn it. Promotional materials are the clothes movies wear, and American movies are running around with a bunch of wack-ass shit on; it's embarrassing. I know we can do better. Setting aside even the quality of the films in question, the least we can do is try and promote them well. It shows audiences, and the rest of the world, "look - MEET DAVE might be rubbish, but we're making an effort at least." I'd rather see Pen and Pixel doing everyone's posters - at least that would amuse me on some level. What we have now is an utter creative void, and that's just unacceptable.

I wouldn't have put FERRIS BUELLER or OFFICE SPACE in that montage of awful posters. I love that FERRIS BUELLER poster, even though it is more or less the blueprint for this style. It's like how after The Chronic came out, every goddamned hip-hop album had "Funky Worm" samples all over it, to the point it just got unbearable to even listen to hip-hop at all. That doesn't take anything away from The Chronic, it's not Dr. Dre's fault that everyone started trying, unsuccessfully, to ape his sound. OFFICE SPACE is also enough of a twist on the formula that I rather like it.

This, on the other hand...



...makes me want to hurl Molotov cocktails at Adobe's headquarters. So amazingly ugly, stupid and incoherent. You almost need a computer to make something so unattractive. Please make special note of the truck just sort of superimposed onto the ocean for no discernable reason.

To give the HOT ROD poster credit, it does have a stunt, and explosion, and Isla Fisher. Kinda reminds me of my pants-party.

That's three of us that thought of that poster the second we read the "can't think of a single good poster..." line.

Yeah. Great Conan parody...

Too bad they couldn't maintain the tradition with Christmas Vacation. And the less said about Vegas Vacation the better.

But, I think we can agree that this was all well and good in the 80's. (Planes, Trains and Automobiles also has a pretty good poster) The 90's began the trend of awful one-sheets for comedic films.

I'm talking generalities of course. I'm sure we can dig up some exceptions.

Great (even if similar), regardless of font simplicity/color:



EDIT (to add the awesome):

Hmm...

Or maybe it's like this: Good Comedy = Good Posters.

Bad Comedy = Fucking Awful One Sheets.

The Neil Patrick Harris/Unicorn poster is still my favorite of the year.

Holy crap, that HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS poster looks atrocious. Hadn't even heard of this film before, but thanks to this poster I now feel predisposed to hate it. You can, if you squint hard enough at it, actually see Simon Pegg's soul wilting.

Fucking AWFUL. Seems like Peggy can't get it done without Wright at the helm. Other directors just don't know what the fuck to do with him.

And is it me, or is he HORRIBLY AIRBRUSHED???? YIKES!!!!!!!!

Things could be far worse.

That's quite a leap from "the poster is bad" to "the film is badly directed". You're going to twist an ankle.

That looks like Pegg's waxwork dummy is standing in for him

I think there's a link between how bad the film is and how 3D and IT'S-COMING-OUT-OF-THE-POSTER-ZOMG the Red Comedy Font is.

The floaty heads thing is worse....

Did that have a title? I didn't get past the credits.

God, how I hate that PRESTIGE poster. Scarlett Johansson and a picture of Hugh Jackman that actually made him look unattractive? Horrible, just horrible.

I like the Rocketeer poster, and as a floating head poster, the Batman and Robin one isn't a huge mess either. The Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer posters are some of the worst floating headers ever.

Hmmmmmmm...

Oh my God that's uncanny!

X-Men? Where?