Broken Frontier

Rex Libris will kick your ass, so you’d better bring back your library book.  Truth is he doesn’t care if you’re a seven foot, sword-wielding demon samurai come to learn the ins and outs of world domination or if you’re a six year old with a penchant for needlepoint and you’ve borrowed every how-to book you could find, Rex demands respect for the great institution that is the library and he’ll damn well get it.

“Rex is an immortal librarian who works at the Middletown Public Library, where he helps protect knowledge from the forces of ignorance,” says James Turner, creator of the well-received diamond-in-the-rough series.  The idea of a figure that protects knowledge from ignorance, well it was just too enticing for me to ignore (especially in this day and age).  Rex is everything that a foe of the foolish should be.  His imposing, muscular physique and military style crew cut are offset by thick, Hubble Telescope glasses.  He comes complete with burly Bronx accent to intimidate even the mightiest enemies of learning.  The talking action figure would be a hit.

Turner cites the tried and true premise of unlikely juxtaposition as his main inspiration for the character.  “Throw a normal day job with the fantastical and play with the results,” he says.  “So the librarian is a Bronx-accented tough guy (with the usual comic book brawler physique) who reads philosophy and Shakespeare and wears coke-bottle glasses.” 

But, Turner admits, there was a deeper motivation for setting his character in a library.  He could have easily followed the much-tread paths of Time Cop, Indiana Jones, or Midnight Stalker but he wanted to open up new doors for himself to explore and he wanted a massive pool to play in, so to speak.  “I wanted to create a narrative engine I could tell all kinds of stories with, and also relate to topics, concepts, and writers I find interesting.  A librarian character was ideal as the point of departure.”

It’s immediately apparent when reading Rex Libris that a librarian character was in fact the ideal point of departure for Turner.  Within the first few pages of the first issue, we are introduced to Rex as the stalwart hero of the library stacks when a rogue demon spirit samurai tries to borrow a book called ‘Evil Made Easy’ without a library card.  Within three pages Rex is already fighting for his life, and perusing the shelves for a book (knowledge is power) on how to defeat his foe (a book aptly titled ‘Demon Samurai and How To Defeat Them’).  

Yet, Turner insists that Rex Libris is not all about bouncing around the universe and shooting big guns.  “I want the series to be able to veer about the narrative landscape freely, from action to comedy to absurdity, for example,” says Turner.  “The demon samurai was there to kick off the series with an action hook.  But action all the time becomes boring.  I want to use it as punctuation.”

Turner does a solid job spreading the action thin and yet still making his book ride like a locomotive.  The vector graphic artwork is simple but enticing.  And I say simple only in the reading sense, I have no idea of the difficulty inherent in its creation.  But the art is easy on the untrained eye, making the storytelling flow smoothly from one page to the next.  It’s ghostly reminiscent of the Cartoon Network series Samurai Jack , but with Turner’s own stylized sensibilities that lend it a motif all its own.  Turner admits that his artistic style is still evolving, and he’s slowly refining the look of the series.  “The first five issues were meant to be a graphic novel, so I didn’t want to significantly alter the look in the middle of it,” offers Turner.

Rumors are abound as to Turner’s new direction he’s taking the book with the upcoming issue six, and he was generous enough to impart some insight for his fans: “I saved up a slew of visual changes and unleashed them with issue six, which kicks off a new storyline.  I’ve added shadows (great for atmosphere and hiding time consumptive detail—I’m very practical), gradients, and boxes around most frames.  Makes it easier for people to get into, allows me to create a greater sense of depth.”  He’s also looking out for those readers who can sympathize with Rex’s thick spectacles.  “The font is bigger too, so people will suffer less eye damage reading it.”

Rex Libris , which is issued quarterly by Slave Labor Graphics, has found a happy home in the stacks of avid readers, making it a fairly difficult book to find.  Even here in New York City, where one could probably find a copy of the Bible signed by Jesus, did I have trouble tracking down all the issues that have been released thus far. This, of course, is good news for Tuner.  But he says he can’t really say what it is about the book that people are drawn to.  “I’d like to think people are responding to the sense of fun and absurdity the book has,” he says.  “That’s what I like about it.” 

But that seems purely conjecture, as there were dozens of points about the book that made many readers instant fans.  One of the biggest draws is the utter spontaneity of the storyline and the dry, absurdist humor wrapped effortlessly in the writing, which Turner seems to love to play with.  “His day to day tasks range from helping frustrated reptilian patrons who aren’t familiar with modern classification systems to tracking down alien warlords who don’t pay their late fees.  Sometimes he even reshelves books.  You just never know where a story will go with Rex.”

Rex Libris #1-5 are being collected as a graphic novel under the Slave Labor Graphics banner. The trade paperback is scheduled for a June release. For more on James Turner, visit his website at: www.jtillustration.com.