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[olivermoss]

* This weekend is the opening weekend of the new Doctor Strange film. I've seen the first several dozen times. I used to intensely look forward to the next film. But, I've completely lost interest. I've lost interest so much that I meant to post about this Friday or Saturday, but just forgot.

I'm not going to list out the reasons why my interest in MCU is dead because some of you might still be into it. It's just... weird to think about how this was the thing I looked forward to so much.

* I did what I swore I'd never do: I bought some Blackwing pencils. My first impression was 'wow, do some people just not know how art pencils work and have never used a 2b or 4b?' Also, as soon I got them home I realized that you can't use a standard pencil extender on these very spendy pencils due to the overly designed eraser. Unless you break the eraser off, which I 100% will do. Turns out, Blackwing does make extenders that work with their pencils... but I think snapping the end and using a standard extender might work better.

Using them for sketching they are slowly growing on me. They don't smudge as bad or do the thing where it some of it transfers to the opposing page in your sketchbook when you close it. I had to rub two pages together to get the graphite to transfer. They also seem to leave like 0 loose graphite dust, and I am used to having to 'sweep' pencil drawings regularly. I have a goat-hair brush on my desk for this. I am still side-eyeing the price and the design choices, but I am grudgingly seeing why some people get attached to these. If sketching-on-the-go is your jam, these are good pencils for it. Or at least better than the art pencils I've used. I am using to thinking that well-shaded pencil drawings can't stay nice in a sketchbook, and ones using Blackwings might.

This may be another case of me being overly judgey of spendy art supplies being dumb and leading to me struggling with smudges and other stuff unnecessarily. In my defense, a store near me sells them for $14 a pop instead of the three bucks they should be. So, my initial impression was very 'what is this hipster bullshit?' But, that is also why I recently tracked some down to actually try them and see if they were hipster bullshit. The first thing I learned is that the tiny stationary store near me sells them for insaneballs prices.

Comments

[lovelyangel]

Modern Blackwing pencils use a different graphite formula than the legendary Blackwing pencils of the 20th century. But if you like the modern formula, then the pencils are worth paying for (like $3/pencil). JetPens sells them by the dozen. It looks like Blick's does too; they show as being in stock at the Portland store.

I'm extremely fussy about pencils, but I haven't done any sketching in a long time, and I don't even remember what pencils I like.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I looked into them and they are a re-creation of a pencil animators used to use. Which makes sense, old school animation meant constant pencil-sketching.

I mostly use mechanical pencils, which makes art teachers think my soul is dead. But most sketches with art pencils I've used just turn to mush in a sketchbook.

[mistressofmuses]

I try to keep my MCU negative feelings fairly contained, because one of my long-term friends is VERY into it, and it's the thing that got them back into writing after years of writer's block, and it's deeply important to them.

But I just... can't.

-

$14 each!!? God, boutique-y art stores can be ridiculous.

But I'm glad the pencils themselves were pretty nice! I definitely thought the smudging (and that transfer to the reverse page!) was inherent in working with graphite, ha.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I don't want to be a downer to anyone enjoying. But man, the way I can't scrounge up a feelings in any direction about it is just weird.

Seeing that price gave me a bad first impression. I was like "I'd never buy one of those!" I am near a very refined stationary store, but the prices on other items aren't insaneballs?

I pretty much use mechanical pencils exclusively due to the problems with art pencils. Drawings just turn to mush. I can see the appeal to someone who likes to have a portable drawing set up.

[mistressofmuses]

Same. I never want to harsh someone's fun, even when I can't enjoy it. I never got majorly into MCU, but for a while it was something I *hoped* to get into. (I saw the first Iron Man in theaters like four times, I think.) I caught other movies piecemeal with the intent to see them all at some point... but even as a fairly outside spectator, I got burned out on the way the entire MCU was handled, and am at the point where a trailer opening with the Marvel logo makes me instantly lose interest.

That kind of markup is outrageous! But kind of surprising, when the rest of the store isn't like that. I'd absolutely have a "haha, no thank you" reaction to something like $14 a pencil, lmao.

I like mechanical pencils because I like being able to count on it staying sharp, ha. Having to interrupt things to resharpen a pencil should probably be a minor, unremarkable thing, but it throws me off, lol.

[olivermoss]

I've seen Iron Man an insane amount of times. Endgame really broke my interest, then everything else from Derrickson being treated like shit to pandering to anti-vaxxers just stomped it into nothing.

I also like mechanical pencils because it's a consistent line. You have to sharpen and re-sharpen a lot to get an artist pencil consistent.

[mistressofmuses]

I never actually watched Endgame, but just spectating it broke my interest. The pandering to anti-vaxxers was a big deal, too. It also started to feel like the MCU was one of the worst for punishing fans for caring? The idea that if fans predicted or cared about groundwork laid for characters, that had to be undone, so as to "be a surprise" or whatever. (Some was just the fact it was different writers, but the lack of coherency for character arcs and relationships would absolutely have killed my interest had I been trying.) Other than the physical safety issue of the anti-vax shit, what absolutely killed it for me was when actors said they often weren't aware which film they were showing up to shoot, and that they only got heavily redacted versions of scripts, meaning they often didn't know what was happening in the scenes they were in, or how to play them. That feels really unpleasant and disrespectful to me, in a way I just can't move past, apparently.

Having to resharpen a typical pencil SO OFTEN gets on my nerves, haha. Because you're right - you can get it to the exact perfect line width you want, and it will almost immediately wear down to not that.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, actors not even knowing they are filming for a funeral scene is just a giant mess. I'd still be a bit invested if Scott Derrickson was still helming Doctor Strange, but he's not. People cheering that Raimi replaced his didn't help. Neither did that 3 seconds of 'queer rep' to try to sell the film as inclusive.

[mistressofmuses]

Oh bleh, if I never have to hear crowing about "OMG THE MOST INCLUSIVE [insert franchise] FILM EVAR!!1!" amounting to one throwaway line of dialogue or a three-to-seven second background scene that will be cut in foreign markets with absolutely zero impact on the film as a whole... it will be too fucking soon.

The idea that they actively didn't want their actors to be informed enough to make good artistic decisions (what emotions to convey, how to deliver lines, how their character should feel about it) absolutely destroyed any last vestiges of confidence I had in the films as a whole. It feels so... assembly line. "Stand here and say this line. No you don't know who you're speaking to, what's happened leading up to it, how you feel about it. Just say the line so we can move onto the next one." Yuck.

I like Derrickson as a director, and while I never saw the first Doctor Strange film, he's was one of my mental examples of them hiring really talented people for the franchise. I don't have anything against Raimi, but... meh?

[olivermoss]

Raimi was hated for so long for Spiderman, until it became memes. I am not really into Raimi, but the reaction to him taking over is not what I thought it would be.

Derrickson self-funded a whole proof of concept for how Strange's powers, look and themes could work in MCU. When Marvel hired him, they had to buy the rights to the short he made because that is the basis of MCU!Strange. That's the passion you want.

[mistressofmuses]

That is absolutely the passion you want! Any project should be so lucky as to have someone so invested in the work and making it good and fitting. Instead, the MCU seems to punish that kind of interest and investment, whether from the creators, the actors, or the fans.