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.
Let's be clear: I don't think the Kwanzaa strips detract from "Curtis": I just don't think they are what readers come to "Curtis" for every morning. I feel the same way every year when Entertainment Weekly publishes its annual "Photo Issue" - I don't suscribe to EW for pages and pages of celeb photos, but for news and reviews of entertainment. I love "Curtis" as much as the next person, and I'd like Mr. Billingsley to feature him and his comic cohorts as much as possible. He could even have Curtis celebrate Kwanzaa if he wanted.
ReplyDeleteI can certainly see your point. I think this is an interesting question (and fortunately not major!) or otherwise I would have never posted on it in the first place. I must admit it's taken me a few years to come around to the Kwanzaa strips, but now I enjoy the break. It's kind of like a miniseries that has a beginning and an end - something you don't often get on the comics page anymore since there aren't too many adventure strips left.
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