Amadeo & Maladeo

Drawn in Blechman's expressive, patented "wavy line" pen-and-ink style, Amadeo & Maladeo is the tale of two Mozart-esque half brothers. The aristocratic Amadeo begins his musical career playing violin for the King and Queen of Austria, while penurious, illegitimate Maladeo plays violin for pocket change on a street corner. Both face the trials and tribulations of fame as their stories intertwine and come full circle. Amadeo and Maladeo serves as an elegant and unvarnished metaphor for the hardships contemporary artists face, which appears to be a universal condition of civilization.

R.O. Blechman, born in Brooklyn 1930, is an American animator, illustrator, children's book author, graphic novelist, and editorial cartoonist. In 1984, he won an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animated Programming for The Soldier's Tale. In 1999, he was inducted into the Art Directors Hall of Fame, and in 2011 he received the National Cartoonists Society's Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award. He is also known for The Juggler of Our Lady (1953), Alka-Seltzer commercials, and multiple New Yorker covers.