BY CONAN TOBIAS
BETWEEN THE LINES was founded in 1977 – a joint project between Toronto’s Development Education Centre and Dumont Press Graphix of Kitchener, Ontario – with a mandate to publish non-fiction books by Canadian authors on a range of social and cultural issues featuring non-mainstream viewpoints. Then, as now, Between the Lines had no publisher, no boss, no owner – it remains the product of a consensus culture borne of ’60s idealism. A traditional corporate tome or oral history to celebrate BTL’s upcoming 40th anniversary would seem out of step. Instead, Robert Clarke, a longtime BTL editor and collective member, collaborated with Vancouver-based writer, artist, and designer Kara Sievewright on Books without Bosses: Forty Years of Reading Between the Lines, a company history told in graphic novel format, to be published this October.