Beerkada Comics

I was reading The Art of Usagi Yojimbo for ideas when I came across Stan Sakai’s art technique. He uses a fountain pen for his inks. Curious to try it, I went to SM Megamall’s stationery section and tried their selection of f pens there. I only got non-varying line thicknesses, unlike what Sakai’s work portrays.

So I went back to the book and discovered he uses flexible nib f pens. Ah. I went online to find out about flexible nibs and found a webpage about f pen collecting in the Philippines. It talked about the rarity of flexible nibs even in the shrinking f pen worldwide market, but there was a place in Escolta called Luis Pen Store which apparently was the last bastion of f pens in the Philippines.

So I went to Escolta Ave. besides Sta. Cruz Church, expecting this specialty store was already gone (ever try finding a Pilot brush pen in the country? Bah!) Lo and behold, there it was.

I went inside and asked the clerks about my web-based list of flexible pen. I felt their sophisticated eyes glaring at my newbie countenance, but soon warmed up as they discuss the finer points (ehem) of fountain pens, from loading the ink reservoir to keeping the cap on to prevent the pen from rolling. They also told me of the time Butch Dalisay and his group of 40 writers entered the store. I tried a couple of flexible nibs and even sampled a P10k pen and before selecting a Pilot (P695) for its varying line width. I also bought a bottle of Parker ink for P185.

By this point, I’m cleaning off the ink my new pen threw up on my Stan Sakai book. Let the practice commence.

Update: I’m still not getting the line width variation I want but at this point, I think I’ll use the Pigma Brush Pen for thicker lines and my fountain pen for detail work.