I’ve been a fan of Supernatural since the beginning so when I saw this notebook, I placed my order without delay.
In the show John Winchester’s Journal is a large leather ‘Filofax’ type of notebook filled with everything he knows about monsters and demons and things that very definitely go bump in the night.
This notebook is produced by Insight Editions, and Insight have put a lot of work into it to give you the something that would not look out of place on Supernatural.
What you get for your money is an A5 hardback notebook containing 192 pages of archival quality paper. The cover is produced to look like brown leather, and they have done a very good job of making it look appropriately worn and aged; and even the stitching detail on the cover looks realistic.
There is very little in the way of branding on the exterior of the notebook; all you will find is a gold ‘devils trap’ design on the front cover and on the rear is the company name and that’s it. The only other thing that is on the exterior is the brown elastic closure; as these usually have a limited lifespan, I have tested this one and, so far, it appears to be holding up well to regular use.
Once you open the notebook, you really start to see how much work Insight have put into this, and it’s impressive. The inner front and rear flyleaves are printed to look like worn and damaged pages again with the ‘devils trap’ design, and attached to the rear flyleaf is a pocket for your notes, tickets, spells and incantations et cetera and this has also been printed with the same design so it blends in.
Turning back to the front of the notebook you will find pages written by John Winchester starting with his notes about the demon that killed his wife and then moving on to details about the Wendigo, the Vitala and demons in general with further notes on summoning and exorcising them.
The remainder of the notebook is lined white paper (approximately 6mm line spacing) and is built in sections each of which is stitched and whilst this normally allows a notebook to lie flat when it is open this being a hardback it doesn’t lay flat; as an average you get about 90% of the width of the page you can write on.
When putting it through the ink test to determine if the pages are fountain pen friendly I noticed that there was a small amount of bleed through and a little ghosting, however, I was very generous with the ink for the Q-Tip test and the pen I used was definitely a wet pen with a Medium nib. So, as the ghosting was minimal, I think you may be ok with a fine nib and/or a dry ink, but I wouldn’t like to guarantee it.
So, as always, is this worth your pennies?
I think it is, Insight have put a lot of work into making a really good notebook for fans of the show; so, if that’s you or you know someone who is then this is an ideal gift. I ordered mine from Amazon where you can normally find them for a very reasonable price.
So, as there is nothing left to say I guess it’s time to grab your journal, load the shotguns with rock salt and fire up the Impala because it’s time to kick ass and kill monsters.
Oh, and eat pie!
Disclaimer: The notebook was purchased with my own funds at retail price. The opinions expressed in this review are my own; and I am not connected with either the retailers or manufacturers in any way.
The pictures of the Impala are the property of their original owners and I hope they will forgive me for borrowing them for this post.
The Indian Marmalade Company 