[Joe 6-pack]

"but the text and illustration are ultimately working independent of each other."

? By independent do you mean physically (i.e. the text is not in a "speech bubble") or the subject matter of the text is independent from the subject matter of the miniature? Such is not always the case...

[weegee]

The drawing is not referenced by the text (it came centuries later).

Two books will give you lots to ponder:

Will Eisner's Comics And Sequential Art

Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics