Paper Girls #30. A comic by Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chang, Matt Wilson, and Jared K. Fletcher. It’s the final issue. All have been read and collected from issue #1.
There are so many stories, books, articles, whatever written medium you choose where I’ve wondered what it is that makes the story good. What it is that draws one in? Makes one care. Makes the one turn the page. Makes one check in, pay money, return month in and month out.
Issue #30 could have been read on its own. It’s that good. The story is well crafted and told. There are few words. Cliff Chang has drawn a beautiful story. Just like he did the previous 29 issues. If you read them all you’ll get so much more. It’s a testament to the creative team that you don’t need to.
Read this story. Enjoy it. Take it in and process it for what it is. To lay it down. To set it aside. To think on it. Then… it fades. Pieces may stick, or hang around or ideally linger in the recesses of the mind. Find a place to burrow in and holds for years. If history holds, it won’t. Even writing about it won’t be enough to make it sticky for long. Writing that sentence just became a challenge. My mind is already working to prove me wrong. It wants to find away to say “HA!”. Confidence says it won’t.
So. Why read it? Why ingest it? Why take time. Money. Effort. Why set aside the moment to bring another person’s words to life by reading them? Why give them money? Attention. The investment of self.
Because they made the effort. They sat down and created. They took time from their life to develop the skill to make an issue #30 a great read. There was a story read recently about Picasso that encapsulates this perfectly:
Picasso does a doodle on the napkin, signs it, hands it to the guy, and says, “That’ll be $30,000.” The guy says, “$30,000? That took you five seconds.” Picasso says, “No, that took me a lifetime.” (http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2017/04/picassos-insanely-valuable-doodles/)
There’s no proof of that story being true. Even if it’s not, the point of it is. It’s a great parable. A great tale. And, again, it holds.
It’s an early version of the 10,000 hour rule Malcolm Gladwell popularized. Turns out it’s not really true, but feels true enough. So, the concept holds. It’s why I’m writing now.
The last page of Paper Girls #30 was read. It caught my attention. It made me ask how someone can write such a great, tight, concise story. It makes me jealous. It makes me wonder why he put in all the work and I didn’t. That is making their story about me. And it’s their story. It’s a good story. A well told story.
You should read it.
A Better Father 