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about this for Matt Fraction last year so I’d have a place to point folks for useful information instead of answer the same four or five emails nine thousand times.

But the odd thing this week has been that several people have written back, "OK, yes, I read all that already, but what is THE SECRET?"

After I stared, incredulously, at more than a few of these emails, I asked the missus what to do about these cats. I feel badly about just ignoring them, but, y’know, I don’t have anything to say about DIY past those archived columns. Seems self-evident. But then Mimi said: "Sounds like it’s time to revisit this. But don’t do the nuts-and-bolts; obvi ously they don’t want to hear that it’s Hard Work. Do the philosophy of it. The people who believe you’re holding out some sort of SECRET need to know that it starts with How You See The World."

I could swear I saw the capital letters when she said that.

So here is THE SECRET. The philosophy behind success in comics, in business, in inter-personal relationships:

The Rules Do Not Apply To You.

This is another One Of Those Things that I learned very early in life from my dad, who, as those of you reading this column regularly will recall, is a rock-solid, take-no-shit, New Hampshire Yankee with a granite exterior and a heart of gold, all Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne. So, one day in the summer of 1969, when, of course, all kids my age were thrilled that guys were walking around on the actual moon, the Cub Scout pack we were in decided that maybe they should hold a Space Derby. The Space Derby is similar to the Pinewood Derby (which, as you know, is the model car race the Scouts run), except that the models are miniature 'rockets' -- propeller-driven and powered by two or three rubber bands -- that travel along a heavy monofilament fishing line. You get the picture, right? Four lines strung about four feet off the ground between two wooden frames about twenty feet apart. The kids carve rock ets, wind up the rubber bands, hang ‘em on the fish line, and let ‘em go. The rocket that gets to the end first wins, and moves to the next heat until you go through all the kids and their rockets and you have a winner. It’s all fun and picnics and family bonding and good-old American character building competition.

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