Lezzing Around

to folks who might not know, moleskine is extremely famous AND infamous. they are hardcover notebooks with elastic enclosures. they are expensive, and sold everywhere from pharmacies to bookstores, and does collaborations with a variety of brands including james bond and pokemon. moleskine has tried to establish itself as a luxury notebook, which it technically is.

as long as you do not write in it.

moleskine paper is wholeheartedly shit. it is complete fucking garbage. you might wonder, what makes good paper? well the first thing is how well it can be written on. good paper can handle ink well. good ink handling means clear, solid lines without any feathering (fuzzy spreading), not bleeding through the page, and not ghosting. basically, you want paper that can do crisp lines with a variety of different inks and be used on both sides.

moleskine does not do that. anything more than a ballpoint or pencil will look fuzzy and gross and bleed right through the fucking page. the paper is shit. and that makes people think their pen is shit. and ballpoint pens can be seen on the other side of the page.

common knowledge is that fountain pens, rollerball pens, gel pens, felt pens, and more work better on good paper. good meaning good with ink. but when many people think good paper without knowing any better, they will reach for a moleskine notebook. because moleskine is expensive and advertises itself as good and is widely available. so people try out actually good writing implements on this shit paper, see how bad it works, and then blame the pen.

fountain pens, gel pens, and rollerball require much less pressure than ballpoint pens. they are ergonomic. easier on joints, easier for chronic pain. and moleskine makes people give up on them. nobody wants shitty bleeding feathered lines.

in the united states, our ideas of good paper and good stationery in general are extremely warped. so much of this is because paper here fucking sucks. a lot of paper performs like moleskine. there is shit paper at all price ranges. but you can pick up caliber brand paper (the ones that say made in vietnam) from cvs and have infinitely better performance for pennies. even though it looks low quality, caliber paper (vietnam) can even handle calligraphy ink clearly. bad paper makes people hate good pens and bad pens make people hate writing.

another thing really important to mention, a lot of people think thick paper is always better. this is extremely wrong. in terms of being able to handle a wide variety of inks clearly and cleanly, some of the best paper in the world is tissue thin (tomoe river).

You have your classic Rhodia, which is starting to become more popular in stores in the US and you sometimes see them competing with Moleskin now. They are about similarly priced, and coming from a calligrapher with a large fountain pen spread it usually holds up pretty well! A v solid brand, they do come in different colors but its a bit more of a search to find them

then there's Leuchtturm1917. not my favorite, but serviceable.I use a lot of flex pens and my favorite stub is 2.4mm wide so they put down a lot of ink, but if you're using them for journaling and like a rollerball, medium, fine, ef, and usually a broad you're good to go. They can sometimes take stub nibs and flex pens, depending on the ink you're using. These come in a variety of colors and you don't have to search to get the color you want, unlike rhodia.

mnemosyne: Japanese notebook, comparable to rhodia or maybe even a little better. a very utilitarian design

paperblank: look. I know their notebooks are gorgeous. but they're worse than the other 3 I've mentioned above. with them its less that its prone to feathering and more bleeding--if you turn the page to the back almost all of it is visible. (think writing with a sharpie on a normal piece of paper). yes I still have one. STILL BETTER THAN MOLESKIN

Filofax: not my usual, I dont know enough about them but maybe a little better than paperblank

oh also staples legal notepads are surprisingly fountain pen friendly, they just don't look gr8 but they'll probably be the cheapest lined paper you can find

And then. Theres Tomoe River, worth its weight in gold and it knows it, this is going to be some of the best paper you will ever write on. Sadly it went out of business bc of the pandemic and rising lumber costs. Get it while you can.

PS

A tip: if you're using a fountain pen and the ink is too wet, add a drop of water. It'll help stop the ink from all coming out at once. Conversely, if the ink is too dry and not coming out of the pen properly, add a drop of water.

tl;dr: if you have an issue with ink, before finding a new notebook try adding a drop of water to the ink.

If you prefer Loose Leaf & Binder setup, the Kokuyo Campus Loose Leaf Paper is amazing. It will take a wet black 1.1 Stub like a champ (zero feathering), but you will get faint ghosting. Note: You will also have to get a compatible binder as it is essentially proprietary to their company. 

Melissa Benoist for WMazgazine