History Comicstrip / Curtis

* TheBarber: Curtis gets advice from one. The barber [[AccidentalMisnaming never seems to be able to remember his name]], however.
** Curtis' mother often complains that she doesn't like Curtis hanging around those barbers, picking up weird ideas. Greg invariably laughs her off, saying the weird ideas are how you know you've found a trustworthy barber. No, the ones you've got to watch out for are the ones that do the job without a word...

* NonchallantDodge: In one series, Onion challenges Gunk to a fight. Gunk refuses and doesn’t take it seriously. When Onion attacks him anyway, Gunk weaves and dodges all of Onion’s punches with little effort, without breaking his smiling expression.

* BumblingHenchmenDuo: Derrick and Onion are a pair of [[TheBully bullies]] who frighten the protagonist and his brother, but they're rather incompetent as bad guys otherwise.

* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: Curtis is always getting in trouble in school with his teacher (usually for reading comic books when he's supposed to be doing his work), but in the spring of 2020, the Coronavirus outbreak hit both the real world and the comics... and Curtis got really, ''really'' upset when he found out Mrs. Nelson was in the hospital with the virus, and kept trying to get news from the doctors about her status (which he couldn't, since he wasn't a relative), and even made plans to sneak in and check on her himself. A few months later, when she got better and came to his home, he was head-over-heels with joy at seeing her again.

* PerpetualPoverty: The Wilkins (mainly Greg) constantly complain about scraping by to make ends meet on Greg's salary (Diane appears to be a stay-at-home mom). [[InformedPoverty Yet]] they never seen to be short on food (See BigEater) and the boys always seem to have electronic gizmos current enough to keep them happy.

* AbhorrentAdmirer: Michelle considers Curtis this. Curtis often felt the same way about Chutney.

* HomemadeSweaterFromHell:: Curtis' dad claims to have won the Ugly Holiday Sweater contest at work for the past three years. He's not too thrilled about it.

* CatapultNightmare: An August 2020 arc where Curtis catches up with Michelle ends this way. Curtis pays Michelle a visit, only to discover that she’s put on some weight during the pandemic. She takes a diet pill her father’s chemist invented which makes her skinny again. It then makes her older, inflates her and makes her explode. [[AllJustADream Curtis wakes up screaming]].

* OnceASeason: The Kwanzaa arcs.

* PaperThinDisguise: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]]: the disguises Michelle sometimes don to avoid Curtis are ridiculously good (one of them is a full-body "fat woman" disguise), yet Curtis can ''always'' tell that it's her.

* AbhorrentAdmirer: Michelle considers Curtis this. Curtis often felt the same way about Chutney.

* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Curtis' brother, Barry.
** At the same time, Barry is ''still'' nice to him...sometimes.

* BigEater: Curtis. Some examples include him saying, "Can we stop for pizza before going home to dinner?" after chomping down a bunch of hamburgers, sneaking an entire DagwoodSandwich into the movie theatre and eating it, before then popping out some fried chicken....
** One set of Curtis' cousins who visit for Thanksgiving.

* HomemadeSweaterFromHell:: Curtis' dad claims to have won the Ugly Holiday Sweater contest at work for the past three years. He's not too thrilled about it.

* RunningGag: The strip cycles through them like clockwork. A few examples include Curtis screwing up, Gunk doing crazy things, Barry being an obnoxious bratty little kid getting Curtis into trouble, Curtis sneaking food into the movie theater....

*** Gunther's complete inability to remember Curtis' name.

** During the 90s, there was an extended story where Curtis' mother became pregnant, with most of the focus being on Barry's jealousy and apprehension over no longer being the cute, coddled one. When the baby was about due, though, Barry and Mom inexplicably decided they needed to go out at night alone for some eclairs. Some thugs came up and mugged them, punching Mom in the stomach ''hard''. The baby ended up a miscarriage. The entire neighborhood banded together, agreeing to never forget this terrible tragedy and watch out for each other. Of course, the unborn sibling has -never- been even vaguely alluded to since, AesopAmnesia being in full force for everyone and everything.
** There was also a sequence where Curtis went through a door and found himself back in time on the day that Martin Luther King was assassinated.
** One series had Barry running into the house yelling that Curtis had yanked him by the arm and hurt him. It turned out that Barry was about to get into a stranger's car. Diane blew up at Barry for this, of course, then calmed down and explained that she was just upset. Barry told her that the guy had claimed his dog was lost and might respond to Barry because the dog liked kids. This upset Diane even more, since this is right out of the kidnapper/child molester's playbook. Fortunately, Curtis had the presence of mind to get the license plate number before the guy sped off, so they reported it. Barry said tearfully, "He seemed like such a nice guy," and Diane, obviously very rattled, replied, "Too many tragic news stories start off with those exact words, honey." No mention as to whether the guy was captured, but it's chilling to think of what could have happened if Curtis hadn't been there.
* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: The city Curtis was set went unnamed for years, until a story arc involving Curtis and Barry sneaking off to see the Obama Inaguration [=IDed=] their hometown as Baltimore.

* NiceHat: The title character often gives commentary on the church ladies' more and more extravagant (and silly) hats. Curtis himself is always seen with an oversized green cap; he even sleeps with it on.
%% ** We seem to have seen the last of these; what happened is that Barry finally told Diane what Curtis was doing and, well, [[DisproportionateRetribution she spanked him for]], I don't know, not respecting his elders or insulting God or something that June Cleaver would have handled by a DopeSlap and a comment about not making fun.

* AlphaBitch: Michelle.
** She crosses over with RichBitch, given how obscenely wealthy her parents are. She recently sank one grand on a foot cleaning treatment involving koi fish...which backfired when her feet ended up killing half the fish and traumatized the rest.

* PerpetualPoverty: The Wilkins (mainly Greg) constantly complain about scraping by to make ends meet on Greg's salary (Diane appears to be a stay-at-home mom). Yet, they never seen to be short on food (See BigEater) and the boys always seem to have electronic gizmos current enough to keep them happy.
* RapIsCrap: Curtis's father has nothing but disdain for rap music and is constantly butting heads with his son over his love of the genre. Ironically, despite the strip's attempts to portray this as a product of a [[TheGenerationGap generation gap]], ComicBookTime means that a few decades into the strip's life, [[TwoDecadesBehind he would've grown up when rap was becoming popular]].
** One Sunday strip gives some justification for this aside from the usual parental disapproval of their kids' music: Greg thinks that rap stars are spoiled and entitled. When Curtis tells him to give his favorite singers a break because they've had "hard lives," Greg informs him about the early jazz and blues singers of the thirties and forties who, because of Jim Crow laws, traveled and lodged in squalid conditions during their careers and weren't even allowed to eat in the clubs or stay at the hotels they brought in money for. Curtis, with typical eleven-year-old cluelessness, snaps back, "I guess it doesn't matter to you that some of these people grew up without cable!"

** One series (if memory serves me, sometime in the late 90s/early 2000s) had Barry running into the house yelling that Curtis had yanked him by the arm and hurt him. It turned out that Barry was about to get into a stranger's car. Diane blew up at Barry for this, of course, then calmed down and explained that she was just upset. Barry told her that the guy had claimed his dog was lost and might respond to Barry because the dog liked kids. This upset Diane even more, since this is right out of the kidnapper/child molester's playbook. Fortunately, Curtis had the presence of mind to get the license plate number before the guy sped off, so they reported it. Barry said tearfully, "He seemed like such a nice guy," and Diane, obviously very rattled, replied, "Too many tragic news stories start off with those exact words, honey." No mention as to whether the guy was captured, but it's chilling to think of what could have happened if Curtis hadn't been there.

** One series (if memory serves me, sometime in the late 90s/early 2000s) had Barry running into the house yelling that Curtis had yanked him by the arm and hurt him. It turned out that Barry was about to get into a stranger's car. Diane blew up at Barry for this, of course, then calmed down and explained that she was just upset. Barry told her that the guy had claimed his dog was lost and might respond to Barry because the dog liked kids. This upset Diane even more, since this is a textbook kidnapper/child molester technique. Fortunately, Curtis had the presence of mind to get the license plate number before the guy sped off, so they reported it. Barry said tearfully, "He seemed like such a nice guy," and Diane, obviously very rattled, replied, "Too many tragic news stories start off with those exact words, honey." No mention as to whether the guy was captured, but it's chilling to think of what could have happened if Curtis hadn't been there.

* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Subverted on both counts in a series of strips where Curtis and Barry find an unmarked videotape belonging to their parents. It is implied in one panel that [[spoiler: it's a sex tape.]] However, it turns out that it's [[spoiler: an old episode of ''Series/SoulTrain'' that their parents appeared on, which also serves as the "how they met" story for Diane and Greg.]] After watching the tape, Curtis and Barry have a newfound respect for their parents, i.e. that their parents actually did something "cool" in their eyes.

* RapIsCrap: Curtis's father has nothing but disdain for rap music and is constantly butting heads with his son over his love of the genre. Ironically, despite the strip's attempts to portray this as a product of a [[TheGenerationGap generation gap]], ComicBookTime means he now [[TwoDecadesBehind would've grown up when rap was becoming popular]].

* RealityEnsues: In a recent sequence, Gunk decided to dive into a freezing cold river to rescue trapped dolphins only to end up being treated for hypothermia after being mistakenly declared DOA by [=EMTs=] who forgot about the mammalian diving reflex. While glad to see his friend had survived, Curtis was not happy with being put through the emotional wringer by screw-ups.

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: Derrick and "Onion".

[[caption-width-right:350:The Wilkins family.[[note]] Clockwise from right: Curtis, his brother Barry, father Greg, and mother Diane.[[/note]]]]