Spider-Man strip reboot explained

Michael Cavna touched on Spider-Man's suddenly lacking a wife in Comic Riffs last week, and I can't be bothered to explain it so here's Graeme McMillan to do so for anyone following the strip in the Post. Brian Steinberg at the Examiner just posted on this as well, and appears as cranky about it as I am.

Curtis - Kwanzaa or not?

In "Please bring back 'Curtis'" by Brian Steinberg, Comics Examiner December 31, 2008, Steinberg argues that the annual Kwanzaa stories by Ray Billingsley detract from the strip overall. I beg to differ. While I don't celebrate Kwanzaa, I look forward to the strips in the Post, especially in the variety in the art style. In fact, when this year's strips started, I thought to myself that Billingsley should collect the whole run in a book. I think he should have enough by now and print-on-demand is making specialty collections easy and economically feasible.