A few months ago I was watching a show from 2013 or 2014 called Redwood Kings. I noticed one of their artists using a black Pentel P205. (I still have the show and was going to take a pic, but just haven’t yet.) Has anyone here noticed mechanical pencils in any of the shows or movies they have watched?
I belonged to a slide rule collectors group and they would post the details of any shows where they saw a slide rule and I always thought it was fun.
It is also interesting to see some of the inaccuracies, like a 1960’s metal Pickett slide rule being used by a WWII German officer.
In the 1979 movie ‘Alien’ - I believe the mechanical pencil used by Ash (pinched out of the pocket of Brett) to probe the alien acid hole in the floor of the lab was a Parafernalia 'LINEA’ - still in production as I understand it…
Indeed. The “Linea” can be seen in some shots of the film. While it is a very cool item, it is slightly rear-heavy for my taste, and the front clutch can sometimes show a weak grip of the lead core, especially during tip sharpening sessions.
I recently got a “ixi:z” pair of BP and thin-lead MP paying homage to the Linea — from @drifand — and I have to say that I prefer the balance of the copycat item (ever so slightly more tip-heavy) over the one of the original piece.
Well, I wouldn’t be so harsh as to call it copycat
There was probably some kind of licensing deal between Platinum, ixi:z and Parafernalia. It’s kind of acknowledged in the period advertising.
My bad, poor word choice. I meant sincere appreciation for the company which chose to “redo & tweak” the Linea to widen it’s use-cases as well to BP and MP for thin lead. I do like their interpretation of the source material, and I find it much less derivative than what “copycat” could convey.
