Font Fizz

More than a century after its creation, Frederic Goudy's Copperplate Gothic Bold is still turning heads and garnering new generations of devotees. CGB lovers unite at I Love Copperplate Gothic Bold, a kooky blog devoted to the font that "rises above the noise and clatter of common man, transcending space and time." Click on over to catch up on recent CGB sightings (Fenway Park, the packaging for Hebrew National hot dogs), commentary, and "courtesy redesigns," in which non-CGB logos are brought in line. "When you need to communicate trust, love, and the American way, CGB is the font of choice," notes the blog, which recently startled readers with a declaration that it was changing allegiances: to Comic Sans. A glance at the April 1 post date set minds at ease.

Will Avenir live happily after in the strong yet graceful arms of Adobe Garamond Pro? Can Martha Stewart-y Archer ever make it work with Eurostile? See for yourself by playing Type Connection, a fontastic online dating game created by Aura Seltzer, an MFA student at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Choose a single and get ready to mingle by selecting one of four strategies for finding a good match for your bachelor or bachelorette typeface. In addition to honing typeface-pairing skills, players explore typographic terminology and brush up on type history. Meanwhile, you'll never look at Gil Sans the same way again -- the British octogenarian is revealed to be an emotional eater who wears quirky spectacles.

Neville Brody and Jon Wozencroft ignited FUSE in 1991 as a "dynamic new forum for typography that [would] stimulate a new sensibility in visual expression, one grounded in ideas, not just image." More than a decade since its last issue, the influentual publication (which commissioned original, "experimental" fonts from the likes of Erik Spiekermann and Tobias Frere-Jones and provided them to readers on a disk) returns in FUSE 1-20, out next week from Taschen. The deluxe box set includes all 18 out-of-print issues compiled into a book designed by Brody as well as two never-before published issues, complete with posters and access to an online library of 24 fresh fonts.

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, it's...the alphabet! Artist and type enthusiast Fabian Gonzalez reveals the crusading alter-egos of all 26 letters -- from Aquaman to Zorro -- in "ABC Superheroes," available to order as an art print from Society6. Take a look at Gonzalez's other work on the site for more fontastic creations, including a Batman made up of tiny Batman symbols, a Simpsons-themed alphabet, and a Mr. Potato Head-meets-Magritte mashup entitled "Son of the Tuber" that makes for a great laptop skin.

Is that really Gill Sans or a savvy sans-serif doppelgänger? Take the guesswork out of web fonts with Fount, a nifty little tool created by print designer turned Web developer Nathan Ford. The free bookmarklet will tell you which Web font in your font-stack you are actually seeing -- not just what is supposed to be seen -- along with the font size, weight and style. Since launching Fount (which works in Safari, Chrome, Firefox and IE8+), Turner has taken a look at which sites users are looking at most. Among the most "font-curious" are Smashing Magazine, BBC.com, Neatorama, and the online home of Der Spiegel.

Are you a kerning pro? Put your typographic knowledge to the test with KernType, a fontastic online game created by interaction designer Mark MacKay. Your goal: to achieve pleasant and readable text by distributing the space between letters. When you're done nudging, your solution is compared to the "typographer’s solution" and rated on a scale of 1 to 100. Once you've mastered KernType using clicks (of the arrow keys or a mouse), grab an iPad and try your hand at finger-kerning.