To summarize: The Pentel Pocket Brush pen is one of the greatest sketching tools that has been discovered. Sadly, this pen is scarce in North America, and those lucky enough to have found it are revered as holy men. The Canadian art store “Curry’s” no longer ships to the U.S., and although Island Blue and John Neal Books both do, they can take a while to ship.
Now, I say to you this: I have received some of these very pens from the isles of Japan, thanks to a deep cover conspirator holed up there. Should any in the Minneapolis cell wish to buy them this Sunday or thereafter, the only payment this loyal agent requires is comic books. Please bring $15 worth of comics (throw in your own as well, if you could) that can be sent to our Japanese friend, and the pen is all yours.
The pen comes with two cartridges, so depending on how much you draw, you may have to order more of them from Island Blue pretty soon (approx. $5 US). I do not recommend filling a cartridge with fountain pen ink. Although this worked fairly well for me for a couple weeks, it soon gunked up the whole pen and I was only able to salvage it by submerging it in Windex for two days.
Caveat Emptor: The cartridge ink is thin, not entirely waterproof, smudges horribly on Bristol, and bleeds on some other papers. It is, however, unbelievably awesome on ordinary Bond paper, and is a great tool for sketching in thick, beautiful black lines.
See you Sunday!
