Beside the annals of august periodicals of The New York Times, The Atlantic and The New Yorker, “Popeye” lay preserved in a glass case, telling its first draft of history. On the second floor west wing of the Oviatt Library, a comic book exhibit composed of works from every genre and decade spanning from early last century to the present are on display until Aug.

She kept the pace of a person whose days are measured in minutes, pointing out rooms in the bowels of the theater seldom seen by those without name placards on the doors. “This will be the green room,” she said, walking into little more than a partitioned space at the side of the stage, then quickly walking down the long plastic-lined corridor floor, casually noting the first door on the left to be Ellen DeGeneres’ dressing room.

Her hands, lithe and steady, unwrapped the needle. She took my wrist in her right hand and read my pulse with the deliberate alternation of index, middle and ring fingers. She asked to see my tongue and felt the bulge of flesh between my thumb and index finger.