Good writing

I am an avid fan of the comic strip "For Better or For Worse" by Lynn Johnston. Every morning I log onto the computer and go to the website (http://www.fborfw.com/) and get my daily dose of the Patterson family.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the strip, it is the ongoing saga of the Patterson family. In 1979, Lynn started writing about John and Elly Patterson and their two children. Somehow, the strip evolved so that it runs in real time, the characters age as we do. This means that there are birth, marriages and deaths. It's not unlike peeking into the lives of your neighbours.
The story arcs never fail to strike home with me. When the family dog died, I swear I was actually in tears. (I still get a little upset.) It is a slice out of every life, this comic strip. It's so easy to forget that these are fictional people.
That is the sign of truly great writing, when the reader suspends reality for a while. Some of the best authors that I know of are JK Rowling and Clive Cussler. I never thought that I would be putting a comic strip artist into the same category. Yet Lynn Johnston has created a world so real, the readers actually debate the fate of the various characters, and what they add to the story.
This was most evident in the story arc about Lawrence, who "came out" in the strip a number of years ago. Some of the mail Lynn received was less than polite. The story was a sign of the times, and how far we still have to go.
That's the other sign of good writing. It should reveal as much about the reader as it does about the author. When I get into a story, I like to wind up understanding a little bit more about myself than I did before I opened the book. Sometimes I don't like what I find. Some stories have opened up the Pandora's box of my prejudices and fears. Not to mention my complete ignorance of some subjects.
With me, the danger of good writing is that the real world falls away for a time. A bomb could go off under my chair, and I would never notice.