front page  ·  comicbook reviews  ·  interviews  ·  comics  ·  merchandise  ·  contact us  ·  newsfeed: rss xml

Rex Libris #1-2 Review posted: 22 Dec 2005 Writer: James Turner Artist: James Turner Publisher: Slave Labor Graphics  5.00 out of 5 Stars Reviewed by Matt Rawson

Rex Libris is about a librarian of the same name who risks life and limb in the recollection and restocking of his beloved library. He fights space aliens, ancient spirits, and gods to make sure the tomes of knowledge are returned by the due-date clearly stamped in the books upon check-out.

In the first issue, Rex Libris faces Kurui-No-Oni, demon spirit samurai, who wishes to take out Evil Made Easy with no library card. Rex Libris, steadfast in the enforcement of this policy, refuses to check the book out to him, and a great battle ensues.

Rex Libris is probably the most intelligent — and hilarious — book being produced today, a worthy follow-up to Turner’s wonderful graphic novel Nil: A Land Beyond Belief.

If anything, James Turner has proven himself a learned man, or at least someone who has an astounding collection of Cliff’s Notes and college textbooks. I’m betting on the former.

Rex Libris, it turns out, was a librarian for the Megale Bibliotheke, the Great Library of Alexandria, around the time of its destruction. Along with the burning of the great library, his love Hypatia was killed. He vowed vengeance for the act. He was taken in by Thoth and trained in the many different skills he needed to exact his revenge. They collect together the great works of the world into an underground library.

At the end of issue one Thoth sends Rex on a mission to the planet Benzine V to retrieve an overdue copy of Bertrand Russell’s Principia Mathematica.

Issue two picks right up with Rex researching Benzine V and preparing for the journey. After getting all the info he needs he retreats to his living quarters and we meet Rex’s roommate, the immortal Spartan Simonides, transfigured into a budgie by Circe (who is currently watching over the circulation desk while Rex prepares for his mission). Simonides is quite frustrated by his physical state due to the fact that his despotic ambition was not altered with his body. He convinces Rex to let him tag along on the mission.

Rex Libris is probably the most intelligent — and hilarious — book being produced today, a worthy follow-up to Turner’s wonderful graphic novel Nil: A Land Beyond Belief. Linear and heavily design-oriented, the artwork is very different from the norm and quite obviously the work of an educated illustrator and graphic designer. One can see elements of Chris Ware in the work of James Turner, especially in the extras that both Turner and Ware are fond of putting in their books, like diagrams, almost instructional mini-comics.

For anyone looking for something a bit different I heartily recommend Rex Libris. Each issue of this book is guaranteed to have you sitting much longer than an average comic-reading session, due to the incredible amount of text that Turner fits in. This, however, does not take away from the artwork which is in itself fun to explore and see all the little textual and visual jokes and designs interspersed throughout the pages. Rex Libris is definitely a breath of fresh air in the sea of mainstream books that seem to be written (or tampered with editorially) in a manner that makes one think that those creating these books still have Martin Goodman’s opinion that comics are only read be young children and slow adults.

More information about Rex Libris and James Turner can be found at http://www.jtillustration.com/rex and from my interview with James Turner found in the interviews section.

 

[Read the previous review]

[Read the next review]