Handwriting

and notebooks

I know you didn’t ask for it, but it’s time for me to join the notebook discourse.

I was born in the golden age between the invention of paper and the introduction of digital tablets. I love notebooks. I have shelves full of notebooks. I started using notebooks when all we had were notebooks. As a cartoonist, notebooks are my best friends.

But there’s a caveat. My handwriting.

It’s atrocious. I don’t write in notebooks, I draw in notebooks!

Writing in notebooks is so hard! I took notes in school, and here’s how that went.

• First Page: Just notes

• Second Page: Notes and some doodles

• Third Page: ALL DOODLES

• Rest of the Semester: ALL DOODLES!

• Next Semester: This time it will be dif - ALL DOODLES!

Even though a study I may be making up in my own head says that when you take notes by hand you better remember the content, I just couldn’t do it. Because, what’s the point, when you have handwriting like mine.

And I know what you’re thinking: Avi, Your pants are on fire! I’ve seen you’re work. I can read your handwriting!

Well, here’s my response to that.

My teacher chart-paper handwriting is great! I use markers! Markers in many colors! That’s not the issue. The issue is trying to decipher my amazingly illegible cartoon idea in my notebook the day after I scribbled it down.

OK, OK. Clearly I have big feelings about this, but instead of typing it all out, I’ll let my handwriting speak for itself. Good luck.

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If you got all the way to the end, I’m impressed! Thank you for putting in the effort. And please, since you had to suffer your way through this, why not bring that same misery on someone else! (Unless they’re a doctor.)

Share all your tips and tricks to handwriting, and thanks for reading.

-Avi

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There is a P.S. here, and it’s that I also love drawing on my iPad. It’s great. It’s wondeful. It’s still different than drawing by hand, which I never want to give up.