Raymond Curtis Billingsley (born July 25, 1957) is an

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

cartoonist, best known for creating the

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

''Curtis''. It is distributed by

King Features Syndicate King Features Syndicate, Inc. is a American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editoria ...

and printed in more than 250 newspapers nationwide.

Early life

Billingsley was born in

Wake Forest, North Carolina Wake Forest is a town in Franklin, Granville and Wake counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina; located almost entirely in Wake County, it lies just north of the state capital, Raleigh. At the 2020 census, the population was 47,601. That is ...

, and raised there in his earliest years. Later, his family moved to

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

, in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He credits

sibling rivalry Sibling rivalry is a type of competition or animosity among siblings, whether blood-related or not. Siblings generally spend more time together during childhood than they do with parents. The sibling bond is often complicated and is influenced ...

with sparking his initial fascination with

cartooning A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

. As a young boy, he learned to draw in order to emulate his older brother, who studied

fine arts In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...

Career

Billingsley contributed early cartoons to ''

Kids Kid, Kids, KIDS, and K.I.D.S. may refer to: Common meanings * Colloquial term for a child or other young person ** Also for a parent's offspring regardless of age * Engage in joking * Young goats * The goat meat of young goats * Kidskin, lea ...

'', a magazine "by kids for kids" published in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

and then in

, from 1970 to 1975 under the co-editorship of

Jenette Kahn Jenette Kahn (; born May 16, 1947) is an American comic book editor and executive. She joined DC Comics in 1976 as publisher, and five years later was promoted to president. In 1989, she stepped down as publisher and assumed the title of editor ...

(later president and editor-in-chief of ''

MAD Magazine Mad, mad, or MAD may refer to: Geography * Mad (village), a village in the Dunajská Streda District of Slovakia * Mád, a village in Hungary * Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport, by IATA airport code * Mad River (disambiguation), several r ...

'' and

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

). After graduating from the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan, he attended the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

on a four-year scholarship. After graduating in 1979, he began an internship at Walt Disney Studios. Billingsley drew a nationally syndicated strip called '' Lookin' Fine'' from 1979 to 1982. The strip featured an all Black cast in their 20s, but Billingsley didn't have much creative freedom with the strip and left after two years. By 1988, he was freelancing in advertising and public relations; doing television commercials, posters and animation; and working for magazines such as ''

Ebony Ebony is a dense black/brown hardwood, coming from several species in the genus ''Diospyros'', which also contains the persimmons. Unlike most woods, ebony is dense enough to sink in water. It is finely textured and has a mirror finish when pol ...

''. In October of that year, King Features Syndicate introduced ''Curtis''. Billingsley credits African American cartoonist

Morrie Turner Morris Nolton Turner (December 11, 1923 – January 25, 2014) was an American cartoonist, creator of the strip ''Wee Pals'', the first American syndicated strip with an integrated cast of characters. Biography Turner was raised in Oakland, Ca ...

, creator of ''

Wee Pals ''Wee Pals'' is an American syndicated comic strip about a diverse group of children, created and produced by Morrie Turner. It was the first comic strip syndicated in the United States to have a cast of diverse ethnicity, dubbed the "Rainbow Gan ...

'' — the first American syndicated strip with an integrated cast of characters — with opening the door for ''Curtis'' and other strips. He also credits

Will Eisner William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series ''The Spirit'' (1940–1952) was no ...

, creator of ''

The Spirit The Spirit is a fictional masked crimefighter created by cartoonist Will Eisner. He first appeared June 2, 1940, as the main feature of a 16-page, tabloid (paper size), tabloid-sized, newsprint comic book insert distributed in the Sunday editio ...

'', for encouraging Billingsley to stretch out artistically. "He always told me to reach out and do more than I thought I could. I continually draw strength when I relive his teachings," said Billingsley.

Awards

Billingsley has received several awards, including the President's Award in 2000, during a conference between the

American Lung Association The American Lung Association is a voluntary health organization whose mission is to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease through education, advocacy and research. History The organization was founded in 1904 to figh ...

and the

Canadian Lung Association The Canadian Lung Association (CLA; french: Association pulmonaire du Canada) is a national organization and volunteer-based health charity that supports lung health research, education, prevention of disease/disorders and advocacy in Canada. Beg ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. In addition, Billingsley received the Humanitarian Award from the American Lung Association of Southeast Florida in 1999. He was awarded the

Inkpot Award The Inkpot Award is an honor bestowed annually since 1974 by Comic-Con International. It is given to professionals in the fields of comic books, comic strips, animation, science fiction, and related areas of popular culture, at CCI's annual c ...

in 2014. Billingsley's most prestigious recognition came when he was awarded the 2020 Reuben Award by the

National Cartoonists Society The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...

, placing him in the company of great cartoonists such as Charles Schulz, Garry Trudeau, Jerry Scott, and Roz Chast. He is the first Black creator to receive the peer-voted award.

References

External links

The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Art Database
American cartoonists African-American comics creators American comics creators 1957 births Living people People from Wake Forest, North Carolina Artists from Harlem Artists from North Carolina The High School of Music & Art alumni School of Visual Arts alumni Inkpot Award winners 21st-century African-American artists 20th-century African-American people Reuben Award winners {{comic-strip-creator-stub