Pentel

Pentel Co., Ltd. (ぺんてる株式会社) is a privately held Japanese company which produces stationery products. The name is a combination of the English words pen and tell (as in, telling a story). Pentel is also the inventor of non-permanent marker technology. Most Pentel products are manufactured in Japan, Taiwan and France. Yukio Horie, who was the President of the company until his death in 2010, had invented the fibre or felt-tipped pen in the 1960s.

Products

Pentel produces a wide range of products, mainly writing instruments such as pens and markers.

Artists

Pentel has recently launched the "Pentel Pocket Brush", a "brush pen" that is refillable, using replaceable ink cartridges like fountain pens.

Brush pens (designed and recommended for calligraphy) have also gained popularity among comic book artists, who choose them to ink their works instead of dip pens or traditional brushes. One of those artists using Pentel is Neal Adams.

Curiosities

Former Secret Intelligence Service officer Richard Tomlinson alleges that Pentel Rolling Writer rollerball pens were extensively used by agents to produce secret writing (invisible messages) while on missions. An agent would write the secret message on a piece of paper, then place a blank piece of paper over the message, pressing the two pages together for a moment. When they are separated, the second page looks completely blank but in fact, contains a latent (invisible) copy of the message. The agent then destroys the first piece of paper. Simply rubbing the blank-looking second piece of paper with an ink pen reveals the latent message.