I have never really
cottoned to ballpoint pens. Even in high school I tended towards cheap fountain
pens (and turquoise ink for some strange reason). In my final year at art
college (1969) I created a large B&W poster for our student annual (aka The
1969 OCA Bag) using straight pens and India ink. I believed that technical pens
(like the Rapidograph) were somehow tantamount to cheating. Besides I was a fan
of Aubrey Beardsley and he certainly didn’t take any shortcuts.
My first job after OCA was
in the design department of book publisher McClelland and Stewart. I arrived
there to find that everyone else in the department had wonderful Italic scripts
and I did not. So I set about to figure out how it was done and I started with
an Osmiroid fountain pen. My boss, Frank Newfeld (possessor of a fabulous style
of writing!), used to get letter from fellow designer Allan Fleming — who had a
better hand than any of the M&S designers and he always used red ink. I
never read any of this correspondence but I absorbed the aura of these letters in
every pore. Eventually I wrote to the editor of Graphis (a Swiss art magazine) and he wrote back saying it was good
to see that I was a follower of Fairbank? Huh? Fairbank? I went to a book shop
(this was long before things like Google existed) and found a lettering text by
Alfred Fairbank. So I bought it. At M&S I also used the fountain pen for
illustrating books … sometimes on paper towel for blotty effects.
I did capitulate and
started using Rapidographs, Letraset, Letratone and all kinds of shortcuts
which would have curled Beardsley’s toenails.
Moving along to the 1990s …
I developed my El Whacko© style which consisted of base drawings in fountain
pen embellished and refined on both sides of the line with a fairly fine
Rapidograph plus lots of cross-hatching and stippling. There was a fundamental
problem using this technique for colour because my one and only Rapidograph
fountain pen had seized up and Kohinoor had stopped manufacturing them back in
the 1970s — they used waterproof ink whereas regular fountain pens weren’t
waterproof in the least. I worked out a way to get around this but won’t bother
explaining it at this juncture.
My wife bought me a Mont Blanc
Meisterstück so I have at least one really good fountain pen (which I always
keep stocked with burgundy red ink). Still use this one a lot.
Somewhere along the way I discovered the Pilot V-pen disposable fountain pen. It was prefect for B&W El Whacko© drawings and any written missives I felt like sending. By now (post 1999) I was computerized but I was never much of a typist and much preferred writing letters by hand to firing off e-mails. My source for V-pens was Staples (formerly known as the Business Depot) and I tended to pick up one of two every time I went there for office supplies. And then one fateful day I couldn’t find V-pens … instead there was a BIC substitute. Let’s see … you got two BICs for the price of a single V-pen ($5.00), they wrote about the same but I soon found that they had a Fatal Flaw. The caps showed a distinct tendency to jettison themselves away into the abyss — sometimes the very first time they were used. This made them very dangerous objects to carry upon one’s person — coat, jacket or man purse.
Somewhere along the way I discovered the Pilot V-pen disposable fountain pen. It was prefect for B&W El Whacko© drawings and any written missives I felt like sending. By now (post 1999) I was computerized but I was never much of a typist and much preferred writing letters by hand to firing off e-mails. My source for V-pens was Staples (formerly known as the Business Depot) and I tended to pick up one of two every time I went there for office supplies. And then one fateful day I couldn’t find V-pens … instead there was a BIC substitute. Let’s see … you got two BICs for the price of a single V-pen ($5.00), they wrote about the same but I soon found that they had a Fatal Flaw. The caps showed a distinct tendency to jettison themselves away into the abyss — sometimes the very first time they were used. This made them very dangerous objects to carry upon one’s person — coat, jacket or man purse.
So after a long period of
annoyance I descended Google’s rabbit hole [cue Grace Slick] and raced past the
wide assortment of dodos, walruses, carpenters and a stray Jabberwock until I
found what I was looking for: both eBay and Amazon claimed to have V-pens on
sale. I thought it prudent to throw my lot in with the statuesque beauties of
the rainforest rather than enter a bidding war with like-minded lunatics at the
other place. So I ordered two (2) V-pens which cost me $20 by the time their
(ahem!) services and snake handling had been factored in. And then I waited…
Three weeks later one of
the plaint maidens sent me an e-mail suggesting I write a glowing review of my
purchase. But there was a problem. My purchase hadn’t arrived yet. But it did
later that week and I was as happy as the proverbial clam. But then I became
concerned … if it was going to take the better part of a month to get
reinforcements my writing wrist might atrophy and fade away. What could I do?
I scurried back into that
rabbit hole and VOILÀ — there were at least two local purveyors of art supplies
who still stocked the V-pen. So I went to the first (Curry’s) and purchased
their last two (2) V-pens from a ravishing tattooed sales lady (no snakes were
harmed or handled in this transaction) at a cost of $10. But I’d have to check
on the other place next time I was downtown.
I did and Above Ground
(hmmmm … they too seemed to be into my rabbit hole metaphor?) had a veritable
motherlode of V-pens. I bought five and noted where I needed to go when these
pens ran dry.
Along the way I discovered The Fountain Pen Network. Proof that I’m
not the last person on the planet who still uses these archaic writing
instruments.
