Van Horn's Dinosaurs & 4-tiers

[JALustig@aol.com]

Wes:

In regard to Bill Van Horn's "Nervous Rex" story in Disney Adventures. You
were asking what other people thought of it. Well, I liked it, but I'm
biased. Bill's a close friend and I'm a big fan of his work--including "Rex."
(In fact, Bill and I first met after I submitted a couple of Rex plot ideas
to him way back when he was doing "Rex" as a regular black-and-white comic
book series for Blackthorne.

"Rex" got a lot of critical acclaim from other comics pros back then, but the
stories clearly are not for everyone. Very little happens in most of the
stories. They rarely end with a big finish. I guess the best way to describe
them is that they're "whimsical." They're very reminiscent of (and obviously
influenced by) George Herriman's "Krazy Kat."

As far as the current story goes, it probably has a bit more plot than many
of the Rex stories. It's about Dearie's macho brother, Headstrong the Huge,
coming for a visit. Dearie hopes that Headstrong will be a positive
experience on her wimpy husband. Rex, however, doesn't want to be "a brute,
vast and rambunctious!" He wants to remain a wimp--and the only way to do
that is to pretend that he's even more macho and fierce than Headstrong. And
so...well, you'll have to read it yourself if you want to see what happens.

Wes, I don't know if this sort story appeals to you, but that's the best I
can do to quickly describe it. I hope that's of help.

Four-Tiers:

On a slightly different subject, someone said they thought Van Horn had
started out on the ducks doing three-tier stories. Actually, this isn't true.
He did four-tier stories when he started with Gladstone during it's first
run. Shortly after Disney Comics took over the license he started doing
three-tier stories. (I think that was at Editor Bob Foster's request, but I'm
not sure.) Anyway, that only went on for about 18-months or so. Once he
switched over to Egmont he went back to the four-tier format.

--John