I think Rex has become legendary for being text heavy. If one cannot achieve fame, go for infamy and take kickbacks from ophthalmologists.

There are two reasons for its text heavy nature: first, it's about a librarian. Second, it's a reaction against text-light -- screenplay light, in many cases -- comics.

I liked '70s comics with their copious amounts of redundant explanatory text. That's a part of the genre for me.

I also wanted something that people could go back to and look at a second or third time and always discover something new. I have no objection to people skimming the text.

Comics with little text have little re-read value. That's one reason why I was so fond of Mad Magazine: they threw in all sorts of neat extras, from bogus product info to Sergio Aragones in the margins. You could reread a Mad Magazine a dozen times and always come away with value. I liked that. Great accompaniment for a bowl of late night cereal when you're a kid. You don't get that with the mainstream titles, some of which read like storyboards for movies. I could read one all the way through in five minutes while standing in the comic book store. Not that I'd do that, of course. We all know that would be wrong. You'd need several of these comics to last through a single cup of coffee.

Like most revolutionaries I swung the pendulum too far.

Labels: comics in libraries, floppies, graphic novels