Samurai Cory’s Top 20 Fonts
This personal list of fonts by yours truly.
The preview graphics in this post are the property of their respective owners/designers. Please remember to read the font designers’ or foundries’ EULA (which can be found on either their official sites (mostly as PDFs) or the MyFonts/Creative Market links (except for the fonts that have either the SIL OFL license or are in the public domain). If you see any knock-off versions of fonts or the fonts have been pirated, inform the original font designers or foundries via their Mastodon account, Threads account, Bluesky account, or email address, and give them the links and screenshots to where the knock-off versions of fonts are located. Do not pirate fonts in any way, shape, or form. Prices are in USD (United States Dollars). The links included where to purchase or download fonts. The designers’ country indicates where they are from or located.
One of the most common questions I’m asked is, “Of all the typefaces you admired and purchased, what’s your favorite?” It’s hard to pick one, so I usually base my answer on the fonts I use most. These are the fonts that I’m most happy with, and I find them to be most useful in webcomics, illustration, graphic design, and logo design work, though I’m not a type designer myself. This was originally written on Medium, but why not migrate it here?
Here are my picks for these fonts, which will cover more pay fonts (Y2K and comic/manga fonts) than the free ones.
20. Ethnocentric
Designer, Country: Ray Larabie of Typodermic Fonts, Japan1
Price: Free for personal and commercial use (Regular and Italic), 169.95 USD (all styles)
Styles: 12 styles
Download/Purchase: 1001Fonts (regular and italic are free), MyFonts, Fontspring (the rest paid)
This ultramodern, accelerated display/headline typeface has sharp diagonal cuts that look good on fictional logos of vehicles, skateboards, computers, or clothing companies.
19. Kenyan Coffee
Designer, Country: Ray Larabie of Typodermic Fonts, Japan
Price: Free for personal and commercial use (four styles), 169.95 USD (all styles)
Styles: 14 styles (Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic are free)
Download/Purchase: 1001Fonts, Fontspring, MyFonts
When you need (fictional) logos of cars or Mustang-inspired dashboards, look no further for Kenyan Coffee. The font is seen in the American business reality TV series Shark Tank (though I don’t watch it). Shaz Shanghari (formerly Shanghai’d)2 formerly used this font on their Twitch streams.
18. Reggae One
Designer, Country: Fontworks, Japan
Price: Free for personal and commercial use (SIL OFL)
Styles: Regular only
Download: Here
This font is seen in many video games, such as The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker3, among other video games that were released in Japan. Initially available to Japanese companies and mangaka living in Japan, Fontworks later released the font (along with seven Fontworks fonts) for free for anyone to use. This is useful for having the characters’ names in Japanese or having the characters say in Japanese.
17. Shantell Sans
Designers, Countries: Stephen Nixon of ArrowType, USA; Anya Danilova, Netherlands (born in Russia, Cyrillic design); Shantell Martin, Great Britain (original concept, though she relocated to NYC, USA)
Price: Free for personal and commercial use (SIL OFL)
Styles: Too many to count! (it’s a variable font)
Download: The font’s official site (including the link to Google Fonts and GitHub)
Based on the handwriting of British visual artist and philosopher Shantell Martin, she is famous for using words in her artwork in the Oculus at the World Trade Center in NYC, and for her music and art collaboration with Kendrick Lamar at Art Basel in Miami. This variable font (variable fonts do not work in Clip Studio Paint, but they work in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop) allows you to make your letters jump by adjusting the “bounce” and also adjusting “informality” so that the font looks more like natural handwriting. Useful for certain characters’ handwriting.
16. Vipnagorgialla
Designer, Country: Ray Larabie of Typodermic Fonts, Japan
Price: 109.95 USD (Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic are free for personal and commercial use)
Styles: 10 styles (five weights and italics)
Download: 1001Fonts (four free), Fontspring, MyFonts (the rest paid)
This wide, square headliner gives me Sonic Adventure 2 vibes (I had that game on the Sega Dreamcast — and the updated SA2 Battle on GameCube includes updated graphics), and it comes in handy for simulating car logos, computer logos, or digital dashboards on motorcycles and vehicles. The font will also be used for the fictional Technopreme clothing company for the upcoming Shibuya Brawlers (née Radical Flannel).
15. Athabasca
Designer, Country: Ray Larabie of Typodermic Fonts, Japan
Price: Free for personal and commercial use (Public domain)
Styles: Three widths, six weights & italics (36 total)
Download: Dafont, 1001 Fonts
You’re thinking, “Why are there sans-serif fonts on this list?” Well, it’s damn handy. I love angular (and humanist) sans-serif fonts. I use this for the characters’ smartphone, tablet, and computer interfaces.
14. NK57 Monospace
Designer, Country: Ray Larabie of Typodermic Fonts, Japan
Price: Free for personal and commercial use (Public domain)
Styles: 60 styles! (five widths, six weights, and italics)
Download: Dafont, 1001 Fonts
This monospaced font is also useful for retro computers, OSDs on CRT TVs, and retro computer/video games in webcomics such as “INSERT COIN” and “PRESS START BUTTON”. I’ve also seen this font on a cash register in a Trader Joe’s store (full disclaimer, I hate Trader Joe’s).
13. Karma
Designer, Country: Ray Larabie of Typodermic Fonts, Japan
Price: Free for personal and commercial use (Public domain)
Styles: Suture and Future
Download: Dafont, 1001 Fonts
You’re going to need something for scrolling LED signs and banners. Whenever there are news tickers in the One Times Square building, including the MTA buses, the Tokyo subway, or the NYC subway, Karma is my go-to.
12. Gleaming the Cube
Designer, Country: Ray Larabie of Typodermic Fonts, Japan
Price: 69.95 USD
Styles: Regular only (comes with rad symbols!)
Purchase: MyFonts, Fontspring
You’re going to need display fonts from the early/mid-1990s (and Y2K), and I find Gleaming the Cube useful, as it will be used for the upcoming Shibuya Brawlers webcomic series, including the character names for bios. It comes with rad symbols if you have Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, as I am planning to subscribe to Creative Cloud.
11. Rainforest
Designer, Country: Ray Larabie of Typodermic Fonts, Japan
Price: 69.95 USD
Styles: Regular, Inline, and Topline
Purchase: MyFonts, Fontspring
This font gives off a Jurassic Park vibe, but you should combine the regular on the bottom layer and the topline on the top layer. I love how the small capitals are centered to make logos or signs by putting capitals at the beginning of the word and the end of the last word (or the beginning and the end of each word). This font will be used for the spin-off of Shibuya Brawlers (which will be in the same universe).
10. Neuropol X
Designer, Country: Ray Larabie of Typodermic Fonts, Japan
Price: 169.95 USD
Styles: 30 styles! (three widths, five weights & italics — free regular weight)
Purchase: MyFonts, Fontspring
You’re going to need Y2K fonts for your projects (or your webcomic being set 20 minutes into the future), and Neuropol X fits the bill for the Y2K aesthetic. It also comes with a massive catalog of styles (which includes condensed versions if you want to fit your text!).
9. Joystix
Designer, Country: Ray Larabie of Typodermic Fonts, Japan
Price: Free for personal and commercial use (monospaced), 69.95 USD (proportional)
Styles: Monospaced (free) and Proportional (paid)
Download/Purchase: 1001Fonts (monospaced), MyFonts, Fontspring (proportional)
This video game font is inspired by the 1980s and early 1990s arcade games. It's pretty useful with any video game or pinball-within-a-webcomic.
8. Unibody 8
Designer, Country: Akiem Helmling, Bas Jacobs and Sami Kortemäki of Underware, Netherlands/Finland
Price: Free for personal and commercial use
Styles: Regular, Italic, Small Caps, Bold, and Black
Download: Here
I love pixel fonts, and this one is useful for scrolling LED signs, banners, and digital clocks. It also comes in Small Caps, Italic, Bold, and Black.
7. Piekos FX BB
Designer, Country: Nate Piekos of Blambot, USA
Price: 25 USD
Styles: Basic Regular, Basic Italic, Condensed Regular, Condensed Italic, Thin Regular, Thin Italic
Purchase: Blambot (recommended if you want updates), MyFonts
There’s no sound effects family in my collection that is more useful than this set. There’s always an option for almost any kind of noise, and it comes in handy for big fight scenes when the characters are fighting against bad guys. Piekos FX BB is also seen on the Ben 10 Omniverse logo.
6. Two Fisted BB
Designer, Country: Nate Piekos of Blambot, USA
Price: 20 USD
Styles: Regular, Italic, Alternate Regular, Alternate Italic
Purchase: Blambot (recommended if you want updates), MyFonts
I consider this companion piece to Piekos FX BB. They always pair nicely. It comes with regular and alternates, so you will have four different uppercase character variations, making it hard to repeat the same letter on the same word. It’s also useful when the characters are yelling and/or calling their attacks.
5. Ferrite Core DX
Designer, Country: Froyo Tam, USA
Price: Free for commercial use under the SIL OFL
Styles: Light, Regular, Medium, Black, Heavy
Download: Here
This squarish Y2K font is a display headliner for almost any fictional logos of vehicles or computers. It comes with five weights and no italics. It is also the love letter of freeware and shareware scenes when we had paperweight computers with computer towers.
4. MeanStreets BB
Designer, Country: Nate Piekos of Blambot, USA
Price: 25 USD
Styles: Regular, Italic, Marker Regular, Marker Italic, Underline Regular, Underline Italic
Purchase: Blambot (recommended if you want updates), MyFonts
Look no further if you want a suitable handwriting font, which is useful with journals such as learning a foreign language, handwritten signs such as “OUT OF ORDER!” and “TEMPORARILY OUT OF SERVICE”, and it can also be used in captions or prologues for each chapter. It also comes with underlined variants for emphasizing words and also beats the crap out of Mark Simonson’s Felt Tip Roman font (that font lacks italics or underlines).
3. Brushzerker BB
Designer, Country: Nate Piekos of Blambot, USA
Price: 25 USD
Styles: Regular, Italic, Heavy Regular, Heavy Italic
Purchase: Blambot (recommended if you want updates), MyFonts
This painterly sound effects font is useful for giant explosions and fight scenes, too (except the characters will be using bokken (wooden sword) and shinai instead of real swords)! It can also be used for titles/chapters for the upcoming spinoff of the series I’m working on!
2. FF Meta
Designer, Country: Erik Spiekermann of FontFont, Germany/USA
Price: 330 USD
Styles: 28 fonts!
Purchase: MyFonts
Despite being the only expensive font on the list and willing to purchase, it’s the Helvetica of the 1990s, as I found Helvetica and Arial too bland. This humanist sans-serif typeface family has many uses, including the 1990s and Y2K aesthetic. The font is also seen on the Weather Channel logo, including the subtitles on the present-day Like a Dragon (Ryu ga Gotoku in Japan)4 video games by Sega.
Honorable Mention: Platelet
Designer, Country: Conor Magnat of Emigre Fonts, UK/USA
Price: 115 USD
Styles: Thin, Regular, Heavy (three weights)
The font is seen in PlayStation’s “Interactive” CD sampler disc, as well as Nickelodeon’s “coming up next” segments. The font’s inspiration came from the California license plate, as seen on the font foundry’s official website. Why not bring the font to the modern world for the Y2K aesthetic?
1. Manga Master Pro BB
Designer, Country: Nate Piekos of Blambot, USA
Price: 30 USD
Styles: Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic
Purchase: Blambot (recommended if you want updates), MyFonts
Piekos’ Manga Master Pro BB has manga translation glyphs, new auto-ligatures, contextual alternates, barred-I correction, and more! It’s sure to keep at number one for years to come. The font will be used for my upcoming series (including the spin-off) as the main dialogue font.
Ray Larabie is Canadian, as he moved to Nagoya in 2008. The country of origin for Typodermic Fonts will still read Japan.
Shaz uses they/them pronouns as they are non-binary.
Japanese: ゼルダの伝説 風のタクト, Hepburn: Zeruda no Densetsu: Kaze no Takuto, lit. “The Legend of Zelda: Baton of Winds”
Previously known as Yakuza.