Editing The Pen Addict 492/transcript (section)

== Field Notes Anniversary Edition ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' I would expect it probably will be. Because the stock additions, whenever they do this, whenever they take a limited and make it a stock, they make some kind of change. And I could imagine that they're just like, we now sell a date planner. Like, here it is. You can buy one or you can buy a two-pack. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I would. Yeah. Anyway, like, I think it's good. Like, I just really love the colors. And I think they're cool. And I love the pen. I love the book darts. This is my last.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Book darts are smart because it basically allows you to have a book marker, which would otherwise be incredibly difficult to do on the type of book that they make. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Especially for a planner-type book like this is. Like, the book darts are perfect. And guess what? There's three book darts for the three books.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Three book darts. Three books. That's very good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Book bag. It's, yeah. This is the end of my subscription. This was the last edition, right? Yeah. We resubscribed on the 50th. I'm not renewing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, we both resubscribed because we wanted the anniversary book clips.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We wanted the 50th goodies. Yeah. Totally worth it. Totally worth the subscription. That's a coffee table book forever for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like the subscription, their subscription is totally worth it in my book anyway. Oh, yeah, yeah. I just don't use this product enough, which is always a good decision maker when you're deciding whether to spend your money, things like that. So next up, Blackwing volume 93. I also have thoughts on this one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Of course you do.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So let me start with the story. You know I love my stories, Myke. Corita Kent was an educator, artist, and social justice advocate. Never heard of her. Automatically in love, right? Like give me a person who's artistic and does social justice work and educates. And like the story of Corita Kent, I've actually gone and watched some videos, looked at the artwork, looked at her story, and tried to figure out what she's all about because I never heard anything about Corita Kent in my life. And I'm someone who like her description is like perfect for what Brad would be into. And it's great. It's just fantastic. I think these pencils are terrible. I'm just going to say it like that. Oh, really? I hate these pencils, Myke. Why? I don't know. They look like they should be the back to school special for like the 24 pack for $5. Oh, I like it. I want, you know, I'm the rainbow everything guy. Like give me all the rainbows on all the things. And this is a rainbow set of pencils. It's just not hitting for me from a design perspective. Take the story out, right? Take the story completely out because that's going to make me fall in love with the pencils because the story's great. I don't like, it feels cheap and not up to Blackwing's crazy standards for the price that they charge. I don't get it. I can't describe it. I don't know. Like the artwork is very specific, right? The splashes of ink are basically, are Corita Kent's, you know, ink imagery on certain types of artwork. And if you go look at her artwork, the artwork is amazing. Like all the silkscreen and the print work is like, give me all of it. And like, it just didn't hit for me in this execution of her artwork. And I really can't explain it. I want to say it's the white ferrule, but I actually think that's probably the best part of the pencil.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I think it's mimicking a book cover of hers.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it looks very much like that. These are on purpose. It does. Maybe it didn't have to be. Maybe.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You're not into it, huh? I wish I could explain why. Her general art aesthetic, just for looking through Google Images, it is quite different to that book cover. But she's famous for that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like that's a famous cover, right? Like I get it. Like I'm not knocking the idea, whatever, or whatsoever. Like I'm just saying like for me personally, here's maybe a broader perspective.

'''Myke Hurley:''' She also did an art piece called Love is Hard Work, which is this too.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think from a broader perspective, Blackwing is doing more interesting things outside of the volume sets than in the volume sets.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And like if we're going to do this, the Love is Hard Work idea, I want all of that on one pencil.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, when I'm thinking about this, because individually, what are you telling someone if you give them the red splash pencil, right? But what if I could have the full rainbow with Love is Hard Work on the pencil? Then I think I'm probably feeling differently about it. I don't know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like I don't want like just six of them. And they've all got the same on it, which is what they've done, which they usually do.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah. I just think they're falling flat. Like you look at this last series of the limited, of the volumes editions, they don't hold a candle to what they're doing for limited editions like Preservation Hall. If you look at something like Preservation Hall and you're telling me that's something outside of volumes editions, then I wonder what we're doing here. Because that's one of the, I don't know anything about Preservation Hall, but that's the coolest pencil I've ever seen, right? But that's not a volume. And if you look at like the past years of volumes, there's, I think they're leaving something on the table with these volume sets that it's like a change. I'm seeing like a business path change in that where volumes was the leader in Blackwing's offering. They're almost the laggard now that they have limited editions, labs, and collaborations. Volumes is no longer the superstar in design, from design and, you know, testing perspective, right? It's the more mainstream product now. And I think it's falling flat compared to literally every other Blackwing I can buy outside of the basic 602s and Pearls.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They're the least interesting. And it used to be the most interesting. And I mean, that's just good for Blackwing that they're growing and able to support all of these different lineups. But I'm not sure that volumes is the most interesting thing that they're doing. And I don't even think it's close, to be honest.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, did you look up this Preservation Hall set?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Preservation Hall.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Blackwing. I was looking more Karita Kent stuff. Yeah. She also painted a big gas storage tower thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, I'm all in on her artwork.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, yeah. I saw this Preservation Hall one. I mean, it's nice. Yeah. That's what volumes is to me. I really like the Karita Kent one, though. I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can tell. I can tell. You don't like it. I really like that set.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't hate it. I'm just, I feel. Are you sure? No, I feel like it's not enough.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Or, yeah, I think that's the best way I can put it. I feel that I'm looking around what Blackwing's showing me these days, and I expect more.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I really like it. I like it, okay. But then, you know, you click on the past releases button, and I'm looking, and I was like, okay, the Bruce Lee. I thought that was great, but it's black and white, black and gold stripe. And then the comic set with the artwork, I thought that was pretty cool. I like that one probably the best of this year. And then the volume 223, like the, what is this, the Woody Guthrie one, the highway, This Land is Your Land. It was terrible.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What is happening? I was not expecting this from you today.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But just look at the last four editions, and tell me that, you know, you don't want other things that Blackwing is selling besides these last four editions. That's the way I'm looking at it, and it's like, I don't want any of those. I want the things that are on their limited editions or in their labs.

'''Myke Hurley:''' How do you see the list of things that they've done recently? I find that complicated. Their website is very challenging. It's, again, funnily enough, for subscriptions, the volumes is actually quite tricky.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So click on limited editions, and on the left is Blackwing volumes, and at the bottom is past releases.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Limit, edit, edit. Yeah, because that makes, that's complicated, because you can get to it in two different ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not. Wait, so wait, go to limited editions.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, on, you'll have a drop down. On the left is Blackwing volumes, and at the bottom is past releases. Past releases. That gives you everything.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right, so what, the black and white one, black and yellow one, I didn't like that one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah, it's meh.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But the other ones I like.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The comics one's fine. I don't like the Woody Guthrie. I mean, it's fine. Like, I don't hate any of them. I'm just, my expectations have been set by previous releases and current special editions and collaborations, and those expectations are not being met by what I'm seeing in volumes releases.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Maybe it's harder because they're doing other things that you think look cooler.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm. So it's like. Like, literally everything. And these, let's be perfectly clear, this is $30 for a set of 12 pencils. These are not cheap, right? And I feel like I'm getting more by not subscribing to volumes and buying the other cool stuff that they do.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's my rant. Well, on that note, if you'd like to get the show notes for this week's episode, you can go to relay.fl. Brad may or may not be back next week. Slash an addict, slash 492. If you find Brad with a pencil lodged in his neck, then you'll know what happened. I have the Bruce Lee one sitting right here. I'm sure you do. What was that one that was still cool? Was that like the, the Bruce Lee one's good though, actually. I forgot about it. I didn't like it when I saw it black and yellow, but then when I remembered it was the Bruce Lee suit when you said it. Yeah, no, I like it again, but you hate it. I love these pencils. No! You own it, but you hate it. It's like a love-hate kind of thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' True, true, true. That's what I do. I like the light money on fire.

'''Myke Hurley:''' He loves to hate things and then he buys them. You can find Brad on Twitch. He streams multiple times a week at twitch.tv, slash penaddict, at penaddict.com, and spokedesign.com. You just brought out a new product, right? The Spoke Pencil 6. Is it 6?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Spoke Model 6. Right. It's a really cool next version of our pencil design that's been really popular so far. It's a little bit bigger and has some little bit bigger diameter in the grip section. So, yeah, some of our pens, you know, can be small, but this one is slightly bigger and allows us to mix and match a ton of colors. Like, there's 10 colors already, color combinations already, and I'm sure there will be more because Brian's a madman. Yeah, I love it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I love it. I think it looks really great. Yep. They're awesome. I did find it funny that in, like, the post, it's like, we're not going to get rid of the 4.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, because people are asking, like, the 4, so the 4 is, like, the pencil, right? Like, I don't know if you would call that, like, a company's, like, canonical product. I mean, it's the thing that doesn't mean you want to spoke. It's why I'm involved with spoke. And it's, like, you don't want to say you're never going to beat that design, but it's good for a reason, right? And so, no, the spoke Model 4 is not going away, so people can rest easy. Because we got a lot of emails about that. Anytime, because we've already done a 5 and we've already done a 6, and people say, well, the 4 is not going, is it? And it's like, no, no, it's not going anywhere.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's very funny. It's always very funny. Like, nope, got to keep it forever.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, I'll let you get us out of here. I'll shut up now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You can also find Brad. He is at Dowdyism on Twitter, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. Penaddict on Instagram. I am iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. It is that time of year. You should be thinking about your next year. You should be thinking about your theme. Yearly themes time is coming up. And so you should get yourself a theme system journal. You can go to two places. Go to themesystem.com to find out a little bit more about why you would want to get yourself a theme system journal. But if you already know you want one, go to cortexmerch.com. We have them in stock. They're available right now. Who knows if they'll be in stock in a month or so. We have no idea of knowing. There's more being made. But it is an unknown quantity, this kind of thing. So I recommend people go and check it out right now. You can find me. I am iMike, I-M-Y-K-E, on Twitter. And thanks to Squarespace and Penshalay for the support of this episode. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]