Editing The Pen Addict 377/transcript (section)

== Listener Questions Begin ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Question one. Can you please get Myke and Anna to go crazy and talk about stickers? Definitely. We should do that at some point. Yeah, that won't be an issue. That will not be an issue. Is it possible to identify stationary even when there isn't a visible logo?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Yes. Email me a picture and we can start from there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like how people can recognize cars by seeing the taillights. Mm-hmm. Right? Like it's possible. Three. Do you know of anyone who possesses the skill and how do you acquire it? Brad possesses it. I do for some stuff. The other way is just to spend a lot of time looking at pictures and handling things. Four. How do you find artists on a place like Twitter? Go to Instagram or but always hashtags.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Or other artists who you enjoy who they follow. That's how I find them. Yeah. Good. Good. So I mostly I'd say I follow a heavy percentage of the people I follow are artists on Twitter. That's one of the things I enjoy. And if I find an artist like I really like, I'll pop into who they follow and start scrolling through and pick out a few names from there and follow from that. So that's how I do it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Five. How do you write for a long time about your hand getting super hot and achy?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You don't. There you go. It's going to happen. You just have to take a break. Like my hands cramp when I write pages at a time. Be careful with that. They just do. Yeah. It's not good. So it's posture, right? Yep. What that is is posture and pressure. And that's something you can train yourself. And there's books on that. You'll have to find some of the traditional handwriting books that talk about posture. We've linked to some in the past and on the show. But that's what causes those problems is hand pressure and posture. And I've just never taken the time to learn that those things to do those things correctly. And it would be a lot better.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Question seven. How do you feel when you see a cool pen in a movie?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I get excited. I was like, oh, there's a pen. I wonder what that is. Can I tell what it is real quick? Like to answer the questions two and three above identifying the stationary when you can't see the logo. We do that a lot for pens and pictures and movies. You skipped number six, though. I know I did.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm going back to it now. No, question number six. Is it normal to get ideas for new products even when you don't think you can act on them? Yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I spent all morning doing just that. Oh, good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. Question number eight. Could you bring back Lee from Art Snacks on the show?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Sure. He's awesome. I haven't talked to Lee in a while. We need to do that. He's a good friend and I would be glad to.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And question number nine. How do you become a good writer?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You don't. You just write. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You forget about worrying.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's what you do. Because I will never be a good writer in the professional technical sense of what the good writer definition would be. But the great thing about it is there is no definition. You just have to put the words on the page and hopefully they're moderately coherent, readable, and that you enjoy doing it. And then you're a good writer.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Next question comes from Evan Max. If you could design a pen themed around your favorite character from books, movies, television, or video games, what would it look like and who would you have make it? Would you adapt a current model like the cross Star Wars pens or go completely new?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Do you want me to go first?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, I already know mine.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. I bet I can guess yours too. Yeah. Go ahead.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I want a set of seven pens based around the seven evil X's from Scott Pilgrim.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Easy peasy, right? Yep. So who's going to make it and what's it going to look like?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Jonathan Brooks. All beautiful acrylics. That's what I want. I think that's a move. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. He's got two. So I didn't put a lot of thought on this because I could spend a lot of time on this. And then I started, you know, thinking about video games first. And he did a set for our friend Casey, not Liz, Casey Kagawa around the destiny, the three classes in destiny. So I thought that was cool. Jonathan did that. I'm sorry. So Jonathan actually did that for Casey just based on colors. Right. So I was like, I don't think I could do a video game, but like my favorite movie of all time is train spotting. And like, what if I did a character pen for some of the characters in there? Like I could have, you know, a Mark Renton pen. I can have a Diane pen. I would skip the spud pen that might not go as I would intend. And like maybe do a sick boy pen or maybe, maybe a Begbie pen. He might, he might be good, but I don't know. Like I could pick out their colors, you know, kind of how they were represented in the movie and just kind of do like a story around them. But that would just be like, for me, like it wouldn't be any kind of commercial thing. It'd just be like a cool thing, you know, have my Renton pen and Diane and sick boy and Begbie all just kind of hanging out. And I would totally get Jonathan to do it. I don't know who else I would get to do that because they would have to be some kind of weird combination of an idea of like around like clothing and ideas and colors and music. And like, how do you translate into the pen, that into a pen? And then, well, that's what Jonathan does very well.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, he is the best at that. Yeah. All right. Next question comes from Groovy Times. What is the best finer nibbed $150 pen, Vanishing Point or Sapporo Mini? I've never owned a Sailor or a gold nib pen and these are my two on the shortlist.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' If those are my only two choices, I pick Vanishing Point.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' If I can expand the list, I'd add Platinum at least to test, right? The 3776. I just think the Sapporo Mini, as much as I personally enjoy that pen, if this is your first gold nib pen, even though the Vanishing Point is a very particular type of pen, I still kind of would pick that over the Mini. I feel just like that's a better representation of what a $150 fountain pen is, if that's a fair thing to say. What do you think?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think the Sapporo Mini is too particular.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And the Vanishing Point is one of the most particular pens there is, right? Yeah, but still. The Sapporo Mini just doesn't fit to me. I don't know. No. That seems like a strange choice. And I adore it. It's one of my favorite Sailors, but I'm not going to pick it in that category. Almost ever.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah.