This comment comes from Terressa Lezzi in her discussion of an academic video that looks at the TV series The Wire: “The result of this style was a show that allowed viewers the satisfaction of discovering the beauty of a story, instead of having it explicitly and repeatedly pointed out of them” (“Why You Love The Wire, Explained in Fascinating Detail,” www.fastcompany.com).

Marc Alan Fishman was talking along the same lines when he said the best comics are those that take the time to really present their concept in as many as five or six issues (“How To Succeed in Comics Without Really Trying,” www.comicbookdaily.com, February 25, 2012). In an interview, Brian K. Vaughan similarly said he hadn’t written a big twist at the end of the first issue of the SAGA series (“Interview: Brian K. Vaughan on SAGA, Lost, Twitter and more,” The Beat, comicsbeat.com, March 14, 2012).  We naturally agree with this point of view, but we’ll see in future comments that others favour a much more direct approach.