Killer Approach to Nasty Letters
So let’s say you are not a killer. Never murdered anyone in cold--or even lukewarm--blood. Never pistol-whipped, bludgeoned, impaled, dismembered or devoured anybody anywhere.
But let’s say it might serve your purpose for a certain someone to think you are that dangerous.
Would that single deliciously menacing moment be worth $9.95?
Stuart S. Shapiro thinks it would. And so, apparently, do hundreds of edgy Internet users who have paid that to snap up and download the Los Angeles entrepreneur’s new line of “Killer Fonts.”
Writing poison-pen letters, faux ransom notes and bogus bomb threats in authentic murderers’ script is now as easy as keying in a credit card number.
Outraged that your daughter didn’t get chosen for the high school cheerleading squad? Don’t waste a bullet. Fire off a letter instead using the John Dillinger typeface.
Irate over yet another undercooked chop from that overpriced steak house? The Jeffrey Dahmer font would be perfect.
One of Shapiro’s first customers was a thoughtful husband who wanted to surprise his wife with an exquisitely appropriate gift. “He was calling from Miami, really quite desperate because his wife had just been fired and he needed the Jack the Ripper font immediately so she could write a a nice nasty letter to her former boss,” Shapiro says. Talk about the gift that keeps on giving.
The Ripper’s was the first font Shapiro researched. “Being the sick and twisted individual that I am, I first thought up the name ‘Killer Fonts’ and then thought of Jack the Ripper. I thought sending a letter in his handwriting would, well, have real impact.”
An independent film producer with a dark sense of humor and a desire to reach “all the esoteric wackos out there,” Shapiro, 48, was encouraged to expand his font menu to include more modern killers by his 10-year-old son, Dorian (as in Gray) Hendrix (as in Jimi).
“I live to make my son proud and he loves this project,” says the man who a decade ago created and produced the cult documentary “Mondo New York.” For his latest enterprise, Shapiro insists on using only “the most absolutely, meticulously correct” handwriting samples available from library books and manuscripts.
He also will deal only in what he calls “dead public domain people”--that is to say, no Son of Sam script--despite a cryptic request from a woman who says she urgently needs to compare David Berkowitz’s style with that of one of her own relatives. And, despite growing demand, there will be no writing samples from Bill Clinton, the Menendez brothers or O.J. Simpson.
Always available at Shapiro’s virtual library are Public Enemy No. 1 John Dillinger’s cramped script, Billy the Kid’s loopy scrawl and JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald’s awkward printing.
He may not be the most popular, but clearly the penmanship prize belongs to Wisconsin cannibal Dahmer for his eerily detached hand.
That there are no murderous women on the “Killer Font” menu is an oversight soon to be remedied. “Lizzie Borden is definitely on the horizon,” promises Shapiro, who recently expanded his 3-month-old business to include “more dead guys who didn’t kill anybody.”
But the additions, including Thomas Jefferson’s elegant script and Beethoven’s archaic German style, as well as handwriting fonts for Christopher Columbus and Leonardo da Vinci, is less controversial and, so far, less popular.
Unimpressed by suggestions that his killer fonts may glorify violent acts and violent people, Shapiro insists he has had no complaints from any of his killers’ survivors or any victims’ rights groups. Indeed, out of about 5,000 visitors to his Web page, he says only one had anything genuinely negative to say.
“Most people say, ‘This is the sickest idea in the world--I love it!’ Or they’ll write, ‘This is a disgrace. Would you please do Ted Kaczynski?’ ”
One visitor to Shapiro’s site just signed on to thank him for “A Great Page!” but added, “I hope my handwriting doesn’t end up here.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Notorious Notations
Do you have the killer instinct? Match the face to the font. Answers on E2.
A. Billy the Kid: The young and the restless
B. Jeffrey Dahmer: He’d love to have you for dinner
C. John Dillinger: He’s got a name you can bank on
The Answers
A: Jeffrey Dahmer
B: John Dillinger
C: Billy the Kid