diff -dur xemacs-21.5.29.ORIG/lisp/font.el xemacs-21.5.29/lisp/font.el
--- xemacs-21.5.29/lisp/font.el	2009-08-26 14:49:58.859385283 -0600
+++ xemacs-21.5.29/lisp/font.el	2009-08-26 14:49:20.000998807 -0600
@@ -753,14 +753,23 @@
 
 (defvar font-xft-font-regexp
   (concat "\\`"
-	  #r"\(\\-\|\\:\|\\,\|[^:-]\)*"	        ; optional foundry and family
+	  #r"\(\\[-,]|[^-:,*]\)*"               ; optional foundry and family
 						; (allows for escaped colons, 
-						; dashes, commas)
+						; dashes, commas, asterisks)
 	  "\\(-[0-9]*\\(\\.[0-9]*\\)?\\)?"	; optional size (points)
 	  "\\(:[^:]*\\)*"			; optional properties
 						; not necessarily key=value!!
 	    "\\'"
-	    ))
+	    )
+  "Regexp matching fontconfig font names.
+Unfortunately, there is no explicit standard specifying these.  We disallow
+hyphen and comma in family names unless escaped, because they have a syntactic
+role in fontconfig names.  We disallow colon because it is part of fontconfig
+name syntax, and asterisk because of the potential for confusion with an XLFD.
+We do not allow escapes for colon and asterisk because the fontconfig
+documentation doesn't specify whether they can be escaped, or how a redundant
+escape character is treated.
+#### The name of this variable is subject to change.")
 
 (defvar font-xft-family-mappings
   ;; #### FIXME this shouldn't be needed or used for Xft
@@ -799,6 +808,8 @@
   "Return a font descriptor object for FONTNAME, appropriate for Xft.
 
 Optional DEVICE defaults to `default-x-device'."
+  (unless (featurep 'font-mgr)
+    (error 'unimplemented 'font-mgr "fontconfig-style font names"))
   (let* ((name fontname)
 	 (device (or device (default-x-device)))
 	 (pattern (fc-font-match device (fc-name-parse name)))
diff -dur xemacs-21.5.29.ORIG/lisp/font-mgr.el xemacs-21.5.29/lisp/font-mgr.el
--- xemacs-21.5.29/lisp/font-mgr.el	2009-05-18 08:51:06.000000000 -0600
+++ xemacs-21.5.29/lisp/font-mgr.el	2009-08-26 14:46:44.073953826 -0600
@@ -39,7 +39,8 @@
 
 ;; #### should we wrap the world in `(unless (featurep 'font-mgr) ... )'?
 
-(provide 'font-mgr)
+;; #### implementation is incomplete
+;; (provide 'font-mgr)
 
 (defvar xft-xlfd-font-regexp
   (concat