GOOD Comics for Dummies?

I was reading this article at the Beat and getting slightly depressed. Not because of the huge amount of mediocre comics out there (I knew that already! Sometimes that's part of the appeal.) But because I have aspersions about creating my own comics with my own characters (and maybe even some established characters someday), and frankly I don't want to create mediocre comics. I want to make good comics.

But when one is raised on mediocrity (with startling flashes of brilliance, to be fair), how does one create excellence?

If I'm raised on a steady TV diet of Scooby-Doo, "Gilligan's Island", "I Dream of Jeannie" and "The Brady Bunch", how do I create something better than that? How do I develop the sense to develop something of better quality when my senses have become acclimated to a certain level of quality? To be honest, I'm not being fair to the shows listed above; for each of them I could list several things when make them memorable and fun for me.

Let me check Amazon. Maybe they've got a listing for "How to Make Good Comics for Dummies"...