Editing The Pen Addict 448/transcript (section)

== Comic Creation ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' So we, we do want to talk to Adina about the, her comic creation. Um. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I got, I have questions. Good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But I wanted to just touch on, uh, your triumphant return to pen reviewing, Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Cause he's back. It feels so. He's back, baby. It feels so lame. It feels so lame. It's like, hey, I'm back. I'm back to reviewing. But it was, it was a super frustration point for me, honestly. Like, I didn't like how my handwriting looked. Therefore, I was not motivated to do pen reviews while my wrist was healing. Um. And so now I've, I've started to do more pen reviews. And I finally, like the, the AutoHut Design 03, I purchased and then broke my wrist like two weeks later, it seems like. Pens about on. So I was just getting the, the hang of the pen. Mm-hmm. But that just caused me to want to use the pen the whole time, you know, I was in, in a cast and in a brace and just, I would never shut up about it because I was mad that like, I kind of didn't get my review in when I was like, had my most, most pressing thoughts on this pen, Myke. And it's a cool pen. Like, um, I bought it cause it, the design, like I like the shape of this pen. And what I had seen from AutoHut previously was the most traditional German pens you can imagine, right? Like, like the stock photo image of German pen could be like an AutoHut, like kind of like Faber-Castell, right? Whereas.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I would say that there's still some elements of that in this pen, like the grip section into the nib is very, um, standard looking.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. But this, the design elements of this pen switched over to like the Lamy style. Looks like the dialogue. Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that's what we said when we first saw it is that the cap shape looks like the Lamy

'''Brad Dowdy:''' dialogue. Is that called the dialogue three? It's the dialogue three now. And they're coming out with that new model, which, which we've talked about in the past where it's, it's very interesting, but it's like a combination between the dialogue and the CP one, which is the ultra thin, um, Lamy, uh, fountain pen. So it's a great pen. It's, I was concerned about it when I got it because it, it's heavy in the barrel. So it's a full metal, I guess it's probably like a brass underlay right over this black coating. And I was like, I picked it up. I was like, well, the weights kind of edge towards the back of the pen. So when you hold it, you feel it like up in your hand as opposed to feeling it down in the grip section. But as soon as I started writing that went away. So that's a good, uh, that's a good tip for someone, you know, testing out a pen when you pick it up and you think, oh, this feels heavy. Well, you need to write with it to figure out where that balance is. And if it's still heavy when you're writing with it, then maybe, you know, it's a problem. But I found that that weight issue that it does have went away when I was writing and it just hit like all it, all the check marks, you know, it, it checked all the boxes for me. Um, just in style, performance feel. Um, it's a little expensive. I think it's 180 us dollars. So I think that's kind of like the limit of this pen. Like if this was $225, I don't know that I would like think that was such a great idea for a purchase, right? You can get so many different things in there. And then as I was going through the review and wrapping it up, it finally hit me why I kind of fell for this pen. It's almost a spitting image of the Y studio brassing fountain pen that I love so much, which is it's one of my all time favorite pens. Yeah. When he took off, I took off the cap and set them down next to each other. I was like, well, now it makes sense.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like if you just rolled the Y studio around enough, it would lose its faster thing. I have a question for you. We're going to, we're getting deep now. Is there a possibility that you have placed a lot of emotion into this pen?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, no, no, because I place a lot of emotion in this pen because it's, it's one of those pens that falls into a category, which I'll explain, not because I got it and then couldn't use it. Right. It falls into the category of pens that stick with me because they changed my mind somewhere along the way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. And the weight is maybe the biggest part. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So this is a pen that I thought I would love and then I got it and I was like, this is a mistake. Like, I don't know that I'm going to like this pen. And then it turned out I loved it. And that's what happens. Those are the products that stick with me more because like me and the product came to an agreement at some point that, Hey, this really works. And where my initial thoughts were more negative and with usage, they turned into a positive. And that's sometimes hard to get past. And when you're doing like a review and that's why I don't necessarily want to rush into any review. I'm going to give it some time because things change. It can go from a love to hate or hate to love, you know, in, you know, a couple of weeks or like, you know, a few pages of writing, like whatever that timeframe is, like the opinions change of a product. And that's why I latched onto this pen a little bit more, not because I couldn't use it for an extended period of time.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So there's not a lot of products that do that. Usually, you know, a lot of times when you're reviewing a product, it is what you thought it is.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Especially somebody with your experience.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when, when I get products that changed my, changed my mind, I tend to latch onto them a little bit more. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's cool. I'm pleased that you liked it. Yep. I'm intrigued. I'm very intrigued. I'm still using it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like I want to keep this like in the rotation. Like I enjoy it. It's different enough from everything else that I use where that Y studio was kind of filling that slot. Now, right now I'm using, I'm using this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. It's intriguing, isn't it? Because I remember when, when we first saw this pen, we were like, oh, we never really talk about Otto Hut. I remember we had a conversation a long, long time, a long, long time ago where I bought an Otto Hut pen and hated it. This was years ago. Like when, it's like before I even met Adina kind of time. Like I remember it was like in where, in my, in my old family home, I remember having a conversation with you about it. This may have been like. Yeah. I remember that. 70 decibels days or something.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It was like an ultra classic German design. And now they have, I don't know, you know, the story behind the brand, you know, like, did they have a change of design philosophy? Did they have a change of ownership that, you know, put this, you know, a different focus in adding. They didn't take away, I don't think from their traditional, like their ultra traditional conservative, what you see on a German business person's desk fountain pen. But now they've expanded a little bit into something interesting like this. That makes me want to try it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Let's take a second break and thank our friends at Harry's for their support of this show. Far too frequently, we have to make the choice between quality and fair prices. We've all been there. You end up trying to save some money, so you buy something that's not that great, but then you end up needing to buy something else because you're unhappy and you spent more money in the long run. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just get both quality and a fair price? This is what Harry's is all about. You get factory direct prices and award winning blades. No choice is necessary. For a limited time, Harry's is offering their starter set plus a free body wash for just $3 at harrys.com slash pen addict. Harry's delivers a close, comfortable shave, only $2 per refill. They believe in quality so much that they bought their own factory in Germany so that they could own every single step of the manufacturing process. The Harry's team combined a simple ergonomic design with five sharp blades. They sourced this deal from Sweden and manufactured their blades in this world-class factory that they own. This factory, this German factory, is one of the select few manufacturers in the world to have mastered the technology to create what's called a gothic arch. This is the gold standard for razor blade grinding. It sounds fancy. The gothic arch. It's like, yeah, I only shave with a gothic arch. And all of this is why Harry's stands behind the quality of their blades so much that they have a 100% money back guarantee on harrys.com. And Brad, can you tell me how the gothic arch works for you?