The celebrated Mr. K highlights works that can make you a better storyteller — with or without pictures… By PAUL KUPPERBERG How-to books have been around a long time. One might even argue that the very first book to come off Guttenberg’s printing press in 1455 was a how-to book, the handbook for living, the Bible. These days, you can find how-to books and DIY videos on everything. Don’t know how to hang a door in its frame? There’s a book and/or video for it. I recently needed to do something technically fiddly with my phone a few weeks ago so I found a how-to video on YouTube and Bob’s your uncle. I don’t, as a rule, read a lot of how-to books (and never self-help books; the only self being helped is the one who gets you to buy their tripe), but I am a sucker for a good how-to book on writing. Comic books, sure, but just books on the craft of writing itself, regardless of genre or format. Storytelling is storytelling, whether it’s presented on the stage or screen or on the page, with or without accompanying pictures. I discovered it takes a lot of nerve to write a how-to book. You’re proclaiming yourself an expert in the field, shushing the room so you can tell everybody else how it’s done. A lot of people had to assure me that all things considered—time served in the job, number of stories written, added experience of 16 years on the editorial side of the desk—I was an expert. Once I got over that hesitation, the result was Paul Kupperberg’s Illustrated Guide to Writing Comics (Charlton Neo Press, 2020), a step-by-step guide to creating characters, building worlds, and writing a comic-book script. I guess the monster was out of the box, because around the same time, Kirk Chritton approached me about reprinting some columns I’d once written for his website, ComicsCareer.com, and several other essays on the business of writing and creativity. He published them as I Never Write for the Money, But I Always Turn in the Manuscript for a Check. And, while we’re on the subject of instructive tomes, my choices below include one book that reprints comic book scripts by several top writers, much as I’ve done (minus the top writers) in two volumes, The Unpublished...