Word: billingsley
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Four of the artists have joined the big leagues of national syndication within just the past three years. The most successful is Ray Billingsley, 34, of Manhattan, whose Curtis strip follows the adventures of a youngster growing up in an inner-city neighborhood; the cartoon appears in 200 papers, including the Washington Post and the Chicago Sun-Times. Jump Start, by Robb Armstrong, 29, of Philadelphia, chronicles the day-to-day experiences of Joe and Marcy Cobb, a young working-class black couple, in such papers as the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Dallas Morning News. Stephen Bentley, 37, of Duarte...
More serious concerns also work their way into the strips. "My editors wanted me to keep all politics out," says Billingsley. "But I couldn't do that. Too much of black life is politics." Last summer he tackled the issues of drug abuse and teenage pregnancy in a series of panels in which Curtis' younger brother discovered a crack baby abandoned in a Dumpster by its 14- year-old mother. Curtis' father takes the baby to the hospital and, with Cosby-like wisdom, reminds his sons -- and the readers -- of the horrors of drug...