But who's minding the Middleton Public Library while Rex is gone? It's frequently invaded by, as Rex notes, "some pretty tough patrons. Gods. Undead. Alien Warlords. Vampires. Time travelers." Luckily, Rex left the library in the hands of two very capable women: Circe, the Greek goddess with a fondness for bedding men (including Odysseus) and for turning them into pigs, and Hypatia, a sexy librarian who just returned from the librarian version of special-ops training. While Rex dukes it out on Benzine Five, the gals handle a few pesky, Viking-like vandals at home.

The volume teems with references to world history, mythology, and literature. It's also full of inside jokes and riffs on comic books and the comic book publishing process. There's even a comic-book-within-a-comic-book storyline, where Rex and his publisher, Barry, hash out whether or not Rex's autobiography is just too far-fetched for comic book readers. Or whether or not the story needs juicing up with some buxom babes. Usually, I'm uncomfortably aware when I'm not in on the joke — and that was a recurring experience for me while reading Rex Libris. My husband, an avid comic book reader and one-time collector, had an entirely different reading experience: he understood much more of the satire.

While I like the overall concept of Rex Libris and much of the actual storytelling, I found it somewhat difficult to read because of its format. The volume is quite text-heavy, particularly for a comic book. Normally, I like a lot of text. In fact, I'm so biased toward text that when I read comic books or graphic novels, I usually have to remind myself to look at the illustrations. It's not uncommon for me to get to the end of a page and say to myself, "I think I'm missing something." Well, perhaps it would help to look at the pictures and not just read the text?

But with Rex Libris, I did struggle with the text. In the standard comic book format, the amount of text probably isn't noticeable, but when condensed into the graphic novel format, the text-laden pages and small font size do affect readability — at least to my aging eyes.

That said, I still had a lot of fun with this volume. You can't help but laugh at a kick-ass librarian, can you? If you're new to comic books or graphic novels, Rex Libris might not be the best choice for you. But experienced readers are sure to "get" Rex and his comic book adventures.