[WSG] Can you style Alt text?

[Cole Kuryakin - x7m]

When you've got an href'd image that's farily large that's being pulled down over a dialup line, you can see the alt text in the background as the image loads.   Usually, this this text is a big, blue serif style.   Sure, once the picture gets completely downloaded, it's hidden, but during the download process - over dialup - yuck!   I've seen some sites that have alt text behind a href'd picture, but the text is relatively small and styled.   Does anyone know how to do this?   Is it as simple as creating an alt {} rule with the desired font, size and color?