The Blackwing is Extinct!

[egypturnash]

Found this amusing story via boingboing.net.

The Blackwing was a pencil that went out of production in the end of the nineties; I'd discovered them only a little earlier and was sad to see them go. This, however, is about people who have virtually turned it into a fetish object.

I'm not entirely guiltless; I still have one unsharpened Blackwing in my box of assorted fresh pencils. At Spümcø, Jim Smith stuck the stub of his last one (or one of his last ones) up on a bulletin board with a note reading 'The Blackwing is Extinct!'.

Things like this are why one friend of mine set out to learn to use the dirt cheap pencils you can buy ten for a dollar at the drugstore. And why I do so much of my color work digitally. What artist in the furry community, with the cultural love affair with art markers, doesn't have a horror story of their favorite markers vanishing?

Oh, my current favorite drawing tool is the Dixon Ticonderoga, in 2.5B ("medium") and 1B ("soft"). Maybe I should stock up in case of corporate nonsense.

Comments

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

For me, it's crayons. I have this one set given to me by a friend that picked them up at Olive Garden. They're perfect. They blend like a dream, are just the right shades of red yellow and blue and are now barely usable, they're so small. Of course, Olive Garden has since switched brands, or some such. Crayolas are second best, but are second to these. I have exhausted every restarant and cheesy brand in search of another set of these. Recently, someone gave me one of those Crayola crayon 'makers,' so now I'm making my own. Perhaps that's the next step past the 'use only something that's available forever' step.

-T'