Blacknwhitecomics - 20 Comics -

It was not a story. It was a how-to guide.

But sometimes, late at night, when the shop was empty and the streetlights cast long shadows, Leo would open the case and touch Page 20. And the hand would be there. Always reaching. Always held.

Inside, instead of comics, lay twenty individual, hand-sewn portfolios. Each held a single, complete comic book—twenty pages, stapled, black ink on white cardstock. No publisher logo. No price. Just a title on the first page: BlackNWhiteComics #1 through #20 . BlackNWhiteComics - 20 Comics

His father, Enzo, had been a ghost in Leo’s life. A man who communicated better through cross-hatched shadows than actual words. When Enzo died of a sudden heart attack, Leo, a pragmatic accountant, inherited twenty long boxes. "The twenties," Enzo’s note read, scrawled on a napkin. "Don't sell them. Complete them."

Leo did not sell the shop. He reopened BlackNWhiteComics, but changed the sign to "Fiore’s Gallery - Stories in Black & White." He kept the twenty portfolios in a glass case near the register. Issue #20 was never for sale. It was not a story

"Now read them again, but aloud. Your voice is the ink. Your breath is the white space."

Then, slowly, as if his own tears were a developing solution, a single black line began to bleed from the center of the page. It curled, branched, formed the shape of a hand. A father’s hand, reaching out of the void. And the hand would be there

"Close your eyes. See the first panel you ever drew."

"The final page requires a choice. To complete 'BlackNWhiteComics' is to accept the ending your father could not draw."

Leo turned to Page 20.