Pencil Magazine #4
152 x 228 mm, 156 pages
Maine, US
Biannual
Editor and publisher: Sasha Wizansky
Cover art: Eliza Harris
‘A most humble and universal tool’
Gentle on the eyes and in the hands, Pencil is a small format biannual produced entirely in, well, pencil! Everything from the cover art to images, texts and even page numbers inside were originally handwritten or drawn using graphite, reproduced on pages that feel appropriately notebook-esque. It’s an ode to reconnecting with analog tools away from digital distractions because, as editor Sasha Wizansky writes, ‘entire worlds can emerge from a single pencil.’
This is the ‘How-to Issue’, opening with a detailed guide to penning—or pencilling—an editor’s letter from Sasha Wizansky. She muses on the ‘How-to’ format as a source of control, offering an exit strategy for various scenarios, and implores readers to observe the whimsical motifs of this issue: ‘Notice the cats. The mustaches.’ Inside, discover a whole host of playfully illustrated, personal and narrative guides on how to: Peel the skin off a tired lizard, run away to the circus, get inspired offline, reverse a curse (in cursive), brave and write a thesis, manifest, start skating as an adult, and more.
Plus, Lukasz Iskierka presents the plight of a robot called Glitch in his short story ‘The Factory’, and Sarah Shaw meets John and Amy Higgins, the couple who fashioned a giant pencil in their front yard to replace a much loved fallen oak tree.