A collection of graphic narratives from one of the most influential and respected visual artists of the past half century
Talking Lines is the first-ever comprehensive collection of the work of R. O. Blechman, one of the most prolific and influential visual artists of the twentieth century. His graphic stories are at once jocular, wry, and profound. Blechman ruminates on such various topics as nuclear weapons, war, wiretapping, Christopher Columbus, Leo Tolstoy, William Shakespeare, and Virginia Woolf. His stories have appeared in the seminal magazine Humbug (edited by Harvey Kurtzman), The Nation, Nozone (edited by his son, Nicholas Blechman), The New York Times, and The New York Times Book Review.
Blechman is a modern master of all things visual whose timeless intellect and stripped-down artistry propels his nonstop relevancy. He is one of the few artists who has been able to balance the commercial and the artistic. In his polished and unparalleled career, he has been heralded as one of the great cartoonists, the author of one of the first modern graphic novels, an Emmy and Cannes Film Festival award-winning animator with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, a Hall of Fame art director, and even a blogger for The Huffington Post.

R.O. Blechman's profile page

Seth is the cartoonist behind the comic-book series Palookaville, which started in the stone age as a pamphlet and is now a semi-annual hardcover. His comics have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Best American Comics, and McSweeney’s Quarterly. His illustrations have appeared in numerous publications including the cover of the New Yorker, The Walrus, and Canadian Notes & Queries. He is the subject of a recent documentary from the National Film Board of Canada, Seth’s Dominion. Seth lives in Guelph, Ontario, with his wife Tania and their two cats in an old house he has named “Inkwell’s End.”

Seth's profile page

An immensely rich talent . . . His qualities of taste and intelligence, and - most vital - his instincts never to stray into forms that will betray him, have allowed Blechman to express himself in a variety of ways that have enhanced the quality of American life." - MAURICE SENDAK

"I have always believed that humor - particularly political satire - is one of the most effective ways to make a point. And R. O. Blechman is a master of the form." - ARIANNA HUFFINGTON
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