“I always felt that my skills, such as they are, are as much literary as visual―maybe even more literary than visual, because I always enjoyed language a lot. As for my drawing skills, if I work hard I can do very well.”
©R.O. Blechman
Don Quixote was created for the cover of the Autumn 1998 issue of Story magazine. On this cover an oversized fountain pen draws a man riding a horse who also carries an ink pen held as though it were a lance. Blechman’s drawn figures gallop toward a sheet of lined yellow legal paper. Here the pen is both prime mover and weapon, but also anachronistic―the pen shown is not a modern ball point pen or marker pen, it is a fountain pen. By their design, ink pen nibs are dangerous things. Made of metal, nibs have sharp points through which ink is delivered, so the fountain pen that draws the man on horse also appears to prod its creation into action.
This cover illustration is also an image of Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Sheets of yellow legal paper float above the drawn surface serving as the paddles of the wind mill. Notice how the paper and fountain pen appear to cast shadows while the drawn horseman does not. Each permutation of the pen and sword provides amusement, but also fosters continued contemplation of an essential juxtaposition. Indeed, each time Blechman tackles the relationship, the pen inevitably becomes mightier.
