Many of us are not quite back into the pen show circuit yet, but weโre eagerly watching others. One of my favorite ways to โdoโ a pen show that I canโt attend is to watch Mike Mattesonโs feed (Inkdependence on YouTube). If heโs at the show, itโs a good bet heโll do a Friday afternoon walk through. You do need to guard your wallet though, because it can be dangerous.
Back when he did the Philly Pen Show walkthrough in January I was on the hunt for a new notebook. Iโm getting ready to change jobs (I start a new one on March 6th!) and I wanted to treat myself to a new notebook to store all those first few weeks of information in. You know, where they turn on the fire hose and inundate you with information youโll need later but just canโt absorb all of. So here I was blithely watching Mike walk the pen show floor when he came upon Odyssey notebooks. And that Pompei Marine Life? I was smitten.
I chose the 300 Page A5 Cosmo Air Light Notebook, with the Pompei Marine Life cover ($34) because those sea creatures (artwork by Flaroh Illustration) are AMAZING.
The notebook is A5 size (8.25 x 5.625โณ/21 x 14.5 cm), weighing in at a hefty 423g. Though itโs not lightweight, it packs a lot of pages!
The cover is printed cardboard and the inner illustrations are beautiful as well with their Greek theme. Inside are 300ย numbered pages of 83gsm Cosmo Air Light paper in an off-white color. I was super interested in trying this notebook out because I havenโt sampled Cosmo Air Light paper yet. While I love Tomoe River, I often find itโs too thin for my liking, so I was interested to try out a slightly heavier weight notebook. The paper is really interesting โ itโs super smooth and just a bit toothy. On my wider nib pens (Kaweco B, Pelikan F) the ink is really wet, but it seems to dry quickly. I didnโt find any feathering, but the ink definitely spreads a bit. Even my Kaweco with the F nib isnโt a super thin line.
That said, thereโs a bit of show through but no bleeding and the opposite side of the page is super useable (I get distracted if I can see too much of the previous page through the paper).
While I love the cardboard cover and it seems sturdy, Iโll likely slip it into one of my notebook covers (maybe my Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter?) to keep it from getting too banged up.
Iโm excited to start a fresh new job with a fresh new notebook.
P.S. Next week Iโll tell you about the new pen I bought!
DISCLAIMER: I purchased the notebook above from Odyssey Notebooks with my own funds for my own use. Please see the About page for more details.
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