A comic diary and my thoughts on fountain pens

 

I've bought so many fountain pens in the last 10 years that some don't get used much. One of them is the Custom Heritage 912 with an FA nib ground to an XF and a custom feed from Flexible Nib Factory. I suppose that needs a bit or elaboration! The FA nib that came with the pen was pretty flexible but the feed couldn't keep up so this I had to buy a custom feed! Yes, I ended up spending more. My friend and nibmeister, Greg Minuskin, is a master at retipping and grinding nibs, so I got him to adjust it. I liked really thin lines at the time because I drew small a lot. Fountain pen hunting and getting it customised, just right to get that ideal feeling, can be rather addictive and also pricey.

But after arriving at a threshold, I realised there is no end to it. And I find it a better use of my time and energy to create art with the pens I have. OK, at the time, it wasn't all bad wasted time either. Because, every time I got a pen, I found myself drawing more. Hunting down various special nibs also helped train me in different ways to draw. So I don't regret a certain amount of hunting haha. But once I found that I had all the kinds of fountain pens and nibs that I wanted, buying more didn't serve me more. It's just more of the same.

So recently, I've filled up some old fountain pens again, and started using them again. Using some felt like a new experience again because I'd not used them for so long.

Above is a spontaneous comic diary of recent events. This was done without prompts, meaning, I just wrote and drew what came into my head. Doing a comic diary is rather therapeutic for me, especially when I have so much to do and think about. Perhaps I helps me slow down and think. And pens help with that. And I like that I forces me to record things down in a decisive way since ink is not something easy to correct. So to end this, I'd say, pens aren't just for buying and buying. That's just a pricy, never-ending hunt. They serve me best when I enjoy using them to create and do stuff like this comic diary. So that's what I'm doing with them these days.