Lettering Issues

I was playing with my shiny copy of Illustrator (God bless Adobe and their Educational Licence Programme). After spending many nights pulling my hair out with Sodipodi trying to get the lettering right for Schroedinger’s , it’s a major change. You just click, and the text flows. Wonderful.

Letter balloons are a strange thing. I'm not sure whether the influence of Western comics is affecting me or not. Look at these three balloons:

If this was plain text, I wouldn't even consider the first font. But the balloon outline changes everything. The other two bubbles look artificial, whereas the first now looks natural. Is it just me? Have I been ruined by years of reading hand-lettered balloons?