In Defense of the Ballpoint Pen

There has been much contention over the use of ballpoint pen as a drawing medium from Academia. Even though the ballpoint pen has been in existence for more than a century now, art instructors have failed to embrace it, preferring instead even more ancient dip-pens or strangely-enough the relatively recent Technical-pens and markers.
I believe the reluctance stems from a desire (whether conscious or not) on the part of the instructors, to remove art from the hands of the Proletariat and to keep it in the hands of the few special individuals they have dubbed “artists”.
The ballpoint pen is an instrument of the commoner. It is an inexpensive tool that is cheaply and readily available. Contrast this to the rarified instruments that the Professors prefer which are expensive and available only from rarified outlets. Take for example the technical pen; it is an expensive tool that requires separately-sold nibs to accommodate varying line-width, requires special cleaning, separate ink purchase and by nature is limited to certain absorbent yet not overly porous surfaces due to the liquid nature of the ink, which tends to bleed. The ballpoint on the other hand can be found at any grocery, pharmacy, or convenience store for next to nothing. 10 BIC pens can be purchased for one dollar.
The Art professor (or even the “Fine Artist” for that matter) attempts to feed his own self-importance by convincing the public that what he does is somehow special or unique, while simultaneously downgrading the art of the common man with labels such as “Outsider” or “Kitsch”. Because of this the most ridiculous scrawling or concepts birthed by fine artists are embraced as genius and fetch hefty prices, whereas the clever and technically proficient representational art of an unschooled office-worker is dismissed in an offhand-manner.
The art clique is a silly gang of self-deluded con men.
I embraced the ballpoint as a drawing instrument at the age of 12. I found it to be the most comfortable and convenient instrument with which to draw comics in my spiral-notebook. When I took my first high-school art class the ballpoint was never mentioned, or perhaps “ignored” would be a better word. In my college art-classes an outright professional disdain fell upon my humble ballpoint pen and I was forced into using anything and everything with which a person could draw a picture except the instrument with which I was most comfortable. This is akin to taking Dirty Harry’s gun and giving him a crossbow. It is serviceable, but nowhere near as expedient or effective.
I pretty much ignored everything the Art Professors said because whenever they deigned to show the class their artwork it was either technically-sound yet as dull as cardboard (as in the case of my screen-printing professor) or else random abstract scribbling (my drawing Professors) that no human with a brain connected to a visual-cortex could take seriously as anything other than serious nonsense. Instead of following their advice, I drew my comics in ballpoint pen, using a #3 sable brush for variation.
I’m still working to master the ballpoint. I’ve chosen cloth as a base instead of paper, which brings its own challenges. Nothing worthwhile however (or so I’ve been told) is immediate, but I do know definitely what does not work well for me, such as quill-pens and Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph pens.
Half the distance to success is the discovery of what does not work. Finding what does work, brings you so much closer to the finish line.