![]() Most of the strips don’t complement a lot of the stories that I can handle. And yet I have the innocence of Curtis and little brother Barry, so it was a strip where I could do just anything. Gunther, my barber, he can speak on anything that’s relevant at the time, and he gets away with it, because that’s what happens in barber shops. ![]() I can go from the absurd with Gunk, the character from Flyspeck Islands, and I can hit on very contemporary things. I sort of made my strip to be the type where I could do just about anything I want. But more often than not, it seems like he can just do whatever he wants.ĪNDELMAN: And is there a white strip that’s a counterpart to “Curtis”?īILLINGSLEY: Not really. I don’t know how much controversy he gets into, because I don’t hear about it, but I could imagine that he has in the past and he probably still does from time to time. He says all sorts of things political, gets away with it. I could imagine that they would go along with something that they don’t have to worry about being controversial.ĪNDELMAN: Are there white equivalents to “The Boondocks” and also to “Curtis”?īILLINGSLEY: Well, actually, the number one I can think of is Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury.”ĪNDELMAN: I wondered if you would say that. They were actually fearful of him, so “Get Fuzzy,” things like that – “Over the Hedge” is much safer. ![]() It was just sort of odd the way there was a love/hate relationship with most of the people I spoke to, a lot of editors, a lot of newspaper people. But I’m not surprised that they didn’t go to replace him, because I had heard through the grapevine that a lot of people were scared of him and what he stood for. Well, I was actually more surprised that Aaron quit the job, sort of disappointed because I feel that we need as many voices as we can get that are different and diverse. Give everyone a chance to voice their own opinion.ĪNDELMAN: Were you surprised when “The Boondocks” stopped that there wasn’t another strip like it that moved into its space? In most of the papers, I mean, I think, and I love “Lio,” I don’t want to complain about “Lio,” but “Lio” and “Get Fuzzy” and other strips seem to have filled that void as opposed to maybe another black strip.īILLINGSLEY: Right, right. They need to really expand and let us all at least to have a chance to fail at what we were saying. ![]() And of course, for today’s times, it was just right, but just to give one person a voice isn’t really giving much of a voice at all. It was sort of revolutionary in its own right. It’s almost stereotypical of what a lot of non-black people think we are about. It was actually pushed because it was the angry black man. “The Boondocks” was a product of its time, actually. Cartoonist Ray BillingsleyīILLINGSLEY: Well, yeah. Things just don’t come our way that we see going to people who may be of similar talent or talent that is really not as good as ours.ĪNDELMAN: Some people would jump in and say, well, what about “The Boondocks”? That seems to have done okay. It’s a hard road to travel, and basically what it means to me is I have to work a little bit harder just to maintain my stake within the newspapers.ĪNDELMAN: Have you talked to other African-American cartoonists about this?īILLINGSLEY: Yeah, I have actually spoken with Robb Armstrong of “Jump Start” and Stephen Bentley of “Herb & Jamaal,” and we sort of share similar stories. It seems that many of the opportunities that are afforded to our counterparts don’t come our way. I get the feeling that sometimes people of my color are pretty much ignored by the industry people. It’s been a very hard industry to maintain. Is that true?īILLINGSLEY: Yeah, actually, that is true. Ray, you and I have spoken a few times in the past, and I often get the sense that you don’t feel a lot of respect coming your way from your own industry. And Billingsley takes the detour from the usual story lines every December for an original Kwanzaa tale.īOB ANDELMAN/Mr. It’s a steady performer recognized by the American Cancer Society for Curtis’ efforts to get his father to stop smoking. When I was researching my biography, Will Eisner, A Spirited Life, one of the biggest surprises for me was learning that two extremely successful daily cartoonists, Ray Billingsley of “Curtis,” and Patrick McDonnell of “Mutts,” were once students of Eisner’s at the New York School of Visual Arts.Įisner spoke highly of both men, and he developed an ongoing mentor-style relationship with Billingsley, who was a very young man, just about 16, when he first took Eisner’s class.īillingsley’s strip, “Curtis,” brings a black perspective to the daily comics pages of more than 250 newspapers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |