Type Notes: 1
“Most of the text of this book was set in Backslap Grotesque Italic Semi-Detached, a variant of Bangalore Torpedo Moribund adapted in 1867 from a matrice by the Danish chiseler Espy Sans, a character if there ever was one… Backslap is a solid citizen and a joiner: A.A., A.A.A., AARP, Christmas Club… That part of the text not set in Backslap or Bangalore—the lowercase d’s, k’s, and alternate z’s, except after c—is Jiffy-Lube Piscataway Light Narrow, based on the sixteenth-century face closely resmbling the late Edward G. Robinson. The wise will cross to the other side of the stree when this burly dock-walloper of a font comes galumphing into view.”
Bruce McCall, from “A Note on the Type”
New Yorker 10/06/97 (archive)
