Curbside Boys: The New York Years by Robert Kirby

Curbside Boys: The New York Years Reviews

• 
  Robert

  BY THE WAY (yes a 2019 update to my own review of my own book): Curbside Boys is still in print in e-book format:
  
  http://cleispress.com/book/2096/curbs...
  So if you want to relive the late 90's from the perspective of queer men of impecunious means, by all means go 'n get it!
  
  Curbside Boys is my first ever published-by-a-real-publisher paperback book (it's the sequel to Curbside, which I published myself in 1998, after I won the Xeric Grant). It just went out of print in summer of 2013. It's a bittersweet twentysomething love story between Drew, a bookish introvert, and Nathan, a sexy but secretly sensitive rake. Upon its release in 2002, critics praised in particular its characterizations and the generally introspective, occasionally melancholy feel of the story. Recommended for sensitive alterna-gay boys, tortured artist types, etc.
• 
  RP

  How did I never write a review for this book. I adore Curbside Boys. Full of love and pain and grief and fun and silliness and punk spirit.
• 
  Nathan Kibler

  With Gary Trudeau publishing his forty year retrospective this year it is hard not to be impressed by syndicated cartooning. Charles Schultz is the only other syndicated cartoonist that comes to mind who has a more impressive collection of work, but there are many who have benefited from syndication, becoming national bestselling cartoonists, despite breaking conventions in the system. All the same, writing for mainstream newspaper media seems a breeze compared to the challenges faced by Gay and Lesbian cartoonists who also want to tell their stories.
  
  I learned about Robert Kirby's "Curbside" back in the mid-ninties, years after I'd begun collecting gay comicbooks. I was immediately impressed, because his formula of telling simple stories about relationships between gay men was something I'd attempted to do at the same time, but never found my voice or stride. Robert had something I didn't have, which is a real drive to be published in as many newspapers as he could manage.
  
  The Gay press media landscape has changed over the years, but there has never been a syndicate, that I know of, that have helped the careers of gay cartoonists in the same way that Trudeau, Schultz and other mainstream cartoonist careers have. Kirby and others who want to see their work in print have to hit the pavement and talk to editors first hand, convincing them to make room in their papers to publish their comics. And I know first hand that newspaper editors will make room for paying advertising long before they will print cartoon strips.
  
  Ultimately it depends on the artist and his own discipline to regularly produce quality work and send it out. So the real heros in the cartooning world are people like Kirby, who syndicate their own strips to unsympathetic editors, often for no immediate compensation. Nowadays, newspapers are finding it difficult to maintain their readership. Here in Seattle, we no longer have dedicated gay and lesbian owned bookstores where you know you can find the major gay newspapers. Instead you have to rely on adult bookstores and bars where these things are left on faith that they will get into the hands of the people who need them.
  
  But because Robert Kirby did all this work in the early nineties, he eventually found publishers like Cleis Press who were willing and interested in collecting his strips into published books. "Curbside Boys:The New York Years" is the second such collection. The first collection is incidentally selling for about seventy dollars at Amazon.com, although I would like to point out Mister Kirby is not getting any money from these used copies.
  
  This second collection is a complete story, where the protagonist and his roommate meet, fall in love and then move on. It stands on its own more than anything Trudeau or Schultz ever wrote. Having read the original "Curbside" many years ago it is difficult to compare, but this feels more mature and studied than his earlier strips.
  
  I really enjoyed seeing young men struggling to connect with each other in these stories. Nathan and Drew, the main characters seem fickle twenty-somethings and yet like all young men, vulnerable to the opinions and reactions of others. Their relationship counterpoints the supporting characters lives, Kevin and Rain who break even more stereotypes about black men than I've seen before or since in a gay comic strip. All the same, the drama is difficult to sustain within the context of six to eight panel stories.
  
  Kirby returns to the story-telling techniques that worked for him in earlier strips, bringing back his own "greek chorus" character modeled after himself. He keeps the same squared nose on this character from earlier strips, which helps clue the reader into the fact that this character can directly editorialize for the cartoonist. All the same, he returns to telling the story rather than spending a lot of time with back-story, allowing the characters to tell their own stories.
  
  "Curbside Boys:The New York Years" is a must read in the lexicon of gay comic books. The themes are adult and there is a lot of male sex, but the images are clean and appealing. Anyone who happened to pick them up might keep reading because the emotions and situations are universal.
• 
  Chriso

  I am so so so so so so very mad that I only was able to read this as a library book and now it's ultra rare and hard to find and expensive when found. Because I would probably read this at least 3-5 times a year, it's that addicting. Kirby, in a similar vein as Dykes To Watch Out For creator Alison Bechdel, creates a cast of characters that seem incredibly real and whose serialized misadventures ring painfully true. There's actually a strip near the end of the book that reminds me so much of a moment in my own past that I was wondering if Robert Kirby is somehow a mindreader or just managed to invisibly follow me around for a little while in the late 90s. The story is compelling, the art is fantastic and you'll be a more complete person for having read it. Now someone go buy me an ultra rare copy!
• 
  Gloss

  I *heart* Curbside.
• 
  MariNaomi

  A great story about a handful of young men living in NYC, and the complicated relationships between them. This book really captures that moment in your late twenties when you realize you've got to get off your butt and do something (and maybe stop having roommates). It also did a great job capturing of the loneliness of relocating and being the odd man out. The characters were complex, hilarious and infuriating, and the story was utterly addictive. This book made getting my work done yesterday a real chore, as I just couldn't put it down.
• 
  Greg

  I'd bought Kirby's Curbside almost a decade and a half ago (and am suddenly wondering where my copy is...), but I'd never read the follow-up until now. It's nice to see how well it holds up, and from an artistic standpoint entertaining to see Kirby's art style slowly change into something very closer to where it is today. A pleasure to read and to watch this soap opera unfold, and with a satisfying ending to boot. Good stuff, and I'd love to see an enterprising publisher compile the two books into a reprint omnibus one of these days.
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  Jon Macy

  I reread this recently and it stands up well. Very funny and sweet but there are also some great moments that felt so sad and deliciously heart wrenching. It brought back all the angst of being young and Gay.