Several months ago, my friend Lydia gave me one of these Staedtler Non-Photo blue pencils.

Usually, these blue pencils suck; they’re waxy and useless (especially considering that every copier and scanner made in the last decade can pick them up so they’re not really non-repro). But these Staedtler pencils have a beautiful line. I’ve drawn all of my comics with them since I got my first (my mechanical pencil has been collecting dust). Whenever I’m near Pearl, the only store in NYC that regularly has them (I’ve found them at Apple Art and Utrecht too), I buy out whatever they have. And there’s something about blue pencil that is nice to ink over (makes you feel like you’re in some way like Chris Ware).

It took me longer to find a sharpener that works (I like to keep a very sharp point), until I found this amazing egg-shaped sharpener from Prismacolor. It costs like three bucks and it’s the best sharpener ever – I put all the rest in the waaaay back of the drawer.

And get one of these too, if you’re going to draw with blue pencils, because they get very short, very quickly. A pencil extender is a must: