In praise of Staples

Belatedly I'd just like to take a moment to sing the praise of Staples. I was worried that the pen that I use for all of my caricatures, their own-brand Staples Duramark chisel-tipped black marker, had disappeared from their stores. Outlet after outlet, which had once had them proudly on their shelves in boxes of 12, now seemed to have none at all. Or those they did were in packs of 4 or, horror of horrors, multicoloured packs (the fate that has already, irreversibly, befallen my favourite flipchart marker from Berol, see blogs passim*).

And increasingly I was finding none on show anywhere. And so I asked. Well, I say asked. I bleated. I whined and whinnied, passive-aggressively, in public, on Facebook and Twitter, like a spoiled brat who'd been denied a second pony. And what do you know it worked.

Not only did I receive a pack of complimentary pens just before Christmas, with the lovely handwritten note you can see above, signed by "The Whole Staples Team", but also I was very helpfully given the SKU code (the code is 370090, though don't ask me what SKU stands for). With this code I can get any store to find the pens in stock if they're not on the shelves - it's worked twice already - without having to search for its name and scour catalogues.

So, with the greatest of thanks to Staples, I'm already back in the swing of caricaturing (having done one party and two schools so far this year I've drawn around 250 faces already) and looking forward to more of it as the year progresses.


First caricaturing gig of the year. The kids keep saying I look like Doctor Who. I have no idea why.



* Berol followed up my enquiries about their hard-to-find pens by offering my Comic Art Masterclasses as a competition prize to schools, and sponsoring my appearances across the country. I wonder who else fancies taking up that option..?