His first published graphic novel was NIL from Slave Labor Graphics. His vector-based art and dense, intelligent storytelling garnered him acclaim from both readers and critics. His follow-up project is an ongoing series, also from Slave Labor Graphics, called Rex Libris, a playful exploration of classic literature told through the adventures of a librarian charged with traveling across both space and time to retrieve unreturned library books.

The first issue ships in August of this year, but comicreaders.com was so intrigued by its premise and so impressed by his debut graphic novel, NIL, that we had to contact Turner to learn more about Rex Libris.

Share with our readers the basic premise behind Rex Libris.

I like libraries. I like adventure. I decided to combine the two. Throwing together two disparate elements to create something new is a time honoured tradition in creative circles. It's the basis of a lot of good advertising. It's done all the time. Bewitched put housewife together with witch. Raiders of the Lost Ark put archaeologist together with swashbuckler. Buffy was a cheerleader who fought vampiress. Alien was pitched as Jaws in space. The Meaning of Life had accountant pirates.

Cops are a favourite element in these kinds of combos, and have been paired with just about everything. Time cop. Robo cop. Android cop. Space cop. Monster cop. Psychic cop. Alien cop. Thug cop. Future cop. Dog cop. Forensic cop. Crazy cop. Magic cop. Navy cop. Air Force cop. Demon cop (hmm). Hot beach babe cop. Deaf cop. Vampire cop. Commie cop. Nazi cop. Religious cop. Crooked cop. The list goes on. What is left? Keep throwing out combos and see. Wizard cop. Lizard cop. King cop. Love cop. Ghost cop. Blind cop. Undead cop. Whatever you come up with, eventually it will be a TV series. Once all the combo concepts are taken, they'll combine three or four elements. Crazy undead forensic scientist cop. (An undead forensic expert who also takes a pro-active Quincy type interest in investigations might have a nice ironic edge. On the other hand it might be terrible.) Magic commie space dog cop. The fun is endless. Anyway, this is the pool of thought from which Rex emerged.

A librarian seems to be an unlikely hero and protagonist for a comic series. Thoughts?

Click here for a larger image

This is just what they want you to think. There's a lot librarians don't want you to know. Everything that's been going on behind the scenes at your local library is being blown wide open with the publication of Rex Libris. It's one of the biggest cover-ups in human history, bigger than the Templar plot, more significant than the Bilderberger conspiracy, and of greater scope than the Freemason plan. Fortunately, the purpose of the librarians' plot is benevolent: this is the only thing that is saving me from terrible reprisal, for this material is undeniably explosive, and may very well change forever your view of the world and how it works.

First, librarians have been subtly guiding human civilization for almost two thousand years. By emphasizing, or de-emphasizing, strains of knowledge, they are able to influence the development of our societies. They approach human knowledge as if it was a great Bonsai tree, and they cull and encourage it into the desired shape.

Second, librarians are all part of a secret society called the Ordo Bibliotheca, known in some circles as the Litterati Sodalicium. Its existence has been successfully concealed from the public since its inception in 242 BC in Ptolemaic Egypt. Founded by Callimachus, the chief librarian at Alexandria, and funded by Ptolemy Philadelphus, the society quickly expanded throughout the Middle East, to Rhodes (237 AD), Athens (235 AD) and in 230 AD, Pergamum. All were major Telluric energy hubs. The order outlived the fall of the Ptolemaic Empire, and continued to spread throughout Europe and the East under the Romans, working tirelessly to advance human knowledge and minimize the unspeakable, yet waning, influence of the mad Old Ones and their Chthonian minions.

During the Dark Ages, during which many libraries were burned by Christian fanatics, hundreds in the order fled to Persia, where under native Persian Avicenna (also known as Sahib Al-Masahif, and the first Archmagus of the order, from 1015-1037 AD), they worked to establish an extensive series of libraries throughout the Islamic world, and to suppress the malefic influence of the Djinn of Melkemut. All that remained in Europe were a few isolated strongholds of knowledge, such as Vivarium in Southern Italy, where Rex was chief librarian for several years (and the leader of the book retrieval commando team that was instrumental in eliminating the undead, brain-eating, book-burning zombie mercenaries that plagued Southern Italy throughout the Eleventh Century). As stability slowly returned to Europe, so did the Ordo Bibliotheca. Rex moved to Paris in the Twelfth century to participate in the expansion of the Sarbonne Library, and later helped establish the University of Salamanca in Spain in the Fourteenth Century.

Click here for a larger image

There can be little doubt that without the timely intervention of Ordo Bibliotheca, much of the knowledge of the ancients would have been lost. What little civilization remained was kept alive at heavily defended monasteries guarded by the Ordo Bibliotheca and its combat trained librarians. In addition to infiltrating the church, the order also worked to co-opt, influence, and enlighten the emerging royal families of Europe, as well as protect civilization from destructive supernatural phenomenon, such as the Ghaslichubi and corpulent Unhs.

Richard Bentley (and future Archmagus and Procurator Bibliothecarum, 1695-1699), a senior Bibliophile in the order, was sent by the Grand Librarian in 1692 as a liaison to the British Royal Family, establishing a library branch in the Palace of Saint James in 1694. Bestowed the title of Keeper of the Royal Library, he expelled the Gundar Beast of Zoogh (1675-1694) and helped steer the British crown in the direction of responsible government, pressed the importance of science and empirical based knowledge, and urged the enforcement of the Act of Printing law. The influence of the librarian order culminated with the establishment of the Royal Library under George III, and it is from there the Ordo Bibliotheca would coordinate the promotion of the Enlightenment.

In North America, the establishment of an open, democratic society was championed by Benjamin Franklin (Archmagi Americanus 1770-1790), and as such the Ordo Bibliotheca was deeply involved in the creation of the United States.

Reactionary forces, in the form of secret orders such as the malevolent Illuminati, the Legion of the Librinatrix, and the Ordo Magi Malignus (not to mention the Dark Teliki-iki-iki Beast of the Urug'blech'gu' from Southern Mongolia in 1927) have impeded, hampered, and thwarted many librarian driven efforts, and caused a good deal of consternation and difficulty, not to mention setbacks, but by the mid to late Twentieth Century, Franklin's vision of a prosperous, democratic, and tolerant Union had been realized.

With the innovation of the teleportation crystal in 1921 by Litteratus Magi Rex Libris, a whole new era in lending opened up: interstellar book loans became possible. By 1960, over ten thousand volumes of extraterrestrial origin had been collected and stored at the Middleton Book Repository, a ceramic encased bunker deep beneath the Middleton Public Library. It remains one of the most important reference collections of xenognomic material, and is often used by the Pentagon during alien invasions. Middleton library staff, led by Head Librarian Rex Libris, used information from the interstellar collection to repel an attack by the malevolent Sl'uklu'uhk (hideous, giant space molluscs from beyond Pluto) in 1967, although little information on this event has ever been released to the public.

Click here for a larger image

Crystals, of course, have long been used by librarians to explore the Oneirimundus (dreamworld), and to facilitate entry into the world of literature itself. It can take surprisingly little Telluric current to enter a fictional quantum dimension, but a great deal to move anything from fiction into reality. David Hume (Archmagi 1762-1770) established tables detailing the degradation time of fictional elements extrapolated into real space/time in relation to the invested level of Telluric energy. These remarkable tables are still in use today.

As always, the Ordo Bibliotheca stands for reason tempered by empathy, and empathy tempered by reason, circumstances permitting. The current Archmagus of the Ordo Bibliotheca is unknown, but one can be sure they are working behind the scenes for the sake of all humanity, and their efforts to disseminate secret knowledge to the public can be seen, all over the world, at your local library branch.

The official motto of the order is "Sapere Aude" (Dare to know).

Aside from Rex, tell us about some of the other characters we're going to meet.

Well, the library branch at Middleton is administered by ex-Egyptian God Thoth, and it is Thoth who obtains the magical insurance policies that protect Rex from various forms of harm.

Rex's buddy is a former sophist philosopher named Simonides, who has spent the last two thousand years as a small, telekinetic bird.

Circe, the one who turned Simon into a bird, also now works at the library, after Rex rescued her from Pilgrims in Salem in the Seventeenth Century, much to the dismay of Simonides. She has disavowed her former troublemaking ways and now, with the exception of when she loses her temper, advances the cause of knowledge and reason. She also enjoys baking.

The newest member of the crew is Hypatia, a foxy young woman who has recently earned her Masters of Library and Information Studies, and is eager to kick the butt of the forces of ignorance. Unfortunately, missions are allocated by seniority, so it will be a few issues before she's fully engaged.

If you can, please share with us some of the details of the first story arc or episode.

The first story arc is going to unfold over five issues, and will involve a book retrieval mission to planet Benzine V. There's a lot of material I want to establish for the series, so it seemed like a good idea to explain it without rushing. There are a number of subplots that play out inside an issue as well as elements of longer term story elements.

From the marketing material I've read, it sounds like Rex is going to travel through time and through literature itself on his quest to locate unreturned books. This should provide ample opportunity to explore and / or skew mythology and literature. Are you indeed going to do so?

Oh absolutely. This is going to be a big part of Rex Libris, and I think it'll be a lot of fun. Contemporary books I'll have to make up for copyright reasons, but he'll be able to enter older material, such as Alice in Wonderland and Gulliver's Travels.

With mythology and literature playing a role in Rex's story are you trying to get readers interested in their own public libraries?

I'd like to. There is so much fascinating information out there. It's really endless. The more I learn, as the saying goes, the more I realize I don't know. I hope to stimulate this same sort of fascination in the reader. There's magic in books. Just look at Harry Potter. The only real concern is reference to works under copyright. I'd like to have authors visit the Middleton library, throw in some book reviews at the back, all that sort of thing.

What do you personally like about libraries? And in what ways have your feelings toward libraries influenced this particular piece of work.

I like being able to go in and read books for free, without the staff glaring at me or throwing me out. A good library system is to be treasured, as it gives you access to tens of thousands of books. The sum of human knowledge available at our finger tips. The work of academics, poets, artists, philosophers, scientists... all at our beck and call. It's amazing. We sit atop a mountain of knowledge. It seems a pity to ignore it. Almost anything you want to know you can find. Information in the Twentieth century, under liberal democratic government, is more accessible and open than at any other point in human history, in many ways thanks to the modern library. It gives equal access to both the poor and the rich. It provides social opportunity, as Amartya Sen might say, which is one of the essential ingredients in the development of a prosperous human society. We just have to take advantage of it. As Andrew Carnegie said, "It is the mind that makes the body rich." He believed education was vital, and while I can't help build 1,700 libraries as he did, I can certainly help promote them.