"Hey buddy, did you get a load of the nerd?"

 

You'd probably never guess that a person with a Family Circus blog has a history of being extremely uncool, but it's true. I was, as Billy would apparently say, a nerd of the highest order.

I won't go into all the details of my lameness, but i will say this, and this says a lot:  i was obsessed with Shakespeare.  I memorized monologues, i wore humorous t-shirts - size L - featuring the Bard's face, i was a member of the freaking Shakespeare Sleepover Society.  To make matters worse, my hair was long and parted in the middle, and when i wasn't wearing literary T's, i donned ill-fitting men's sweaters.  

Here's a particularly embarrassing picture some jerk tagged me in on facebook for all to see:

Modesty prevents me from telling you that I've since become awesome (i assume all my readers know me personally, and you all can judge for yourselves!) but it's safe to say that I've  improved since the bleak 11 -18 age range.  There was really nowhere to go but up.

The problem was, unlike our friend Jeffy here, I didn't have anyone -- neither older siblings nor school bullies -- telling me that i was a nerd, and that is why sartorially horrifying photos of me are readily available on the internet.* To paraphrase the guardian angel Clarance, "You've been given a great gift, Jeffy: a chance to see that you're on a one-way train to squaresville."

*I know reposting that picture here would seem to contradict my expressed horror, but i'm trying to get over my embarrassment over my teenage years.  It's all part of the healing process. 

So long, Bil Keane

Sad times in the world of Circles.  Earlier this week -- November 8th -- William Aloysius Keane passed away at the age of 89.

Obviously, Keane's death does not come as a shock.  Many probably assumed Keane had already died – as you already know, I myself had wondered, in the face of declining comics, if he actually had died and it had been kept a secret.  My colleague Andy Mulkerin sent me the following gem from a couple years back, along with a theory: "I bet this actually marked his real death -- it was like when Paul McCartney died and they started putting clues into all those records."

I kinda feel bad for those conspiracy theories now, and kinda don't: such a thing certainly didn't seem impossible.

It also crossed my mind that Keane would never die, an idea which may or may not have been inspired by this:

I've read several sweet and enlightening obituaries about Keane, including this one from the Associated Press, and this one from the New York Times .  Apparently, Keane felt that the comic really "hit its stride" with an instance involving the ever babyish, pajama-clad Jeffy saying to his parents, "I don't feel so good, i think i need a hug."  

 "And suddenly," Keane said, "I got a lot of mail from people about this dear little fella needing a hug, and I realized that there was something more than just getting a belly laugh every day."

Looking at strips from that period, that turning point is pretty clear, as the slight darkness from the very early strips disappeared.   Keane did not, until relatively recently (it seems), completely abandon humorous for heartwarming.  For the truly unfunny dailies of the last 10 years, I continue to blame Jeff, who never quite hits Bil's trademark sweetness sweet spot.

As Jeff himself puts it, "It was a different type of comic, and I think that was my dad's genius — creating something that people could really relate to and wasn't necessarily meant to get a laugh...It was more of a warm feeling or a lump in the throat."

Which is, of course, why people like my grandmother considered the Family Circus to be the highlight of the funny pages, and why people like my sister and myself never tired of mocking grandma for her terrible, unfunny taste.  Grandma always complained that she didn't get The Far Side or Bloom County, and that any animated character created after 1965 was "ugly."  The Family Circus on the other hand, she said, was "nice."  

That i eventually came around to the nicest comic of all time is in no small part due to the fact that, during family visits, i read and re-read Grandma's hardback FC collections out of pure boredom.  Grandma is now in her mid 90s. That she outlived Keane seems improbable, and since my love of the Family Circus seems so closely associated with my love of my grandma, Keane's death makes my grandma's seem considerably more imminent. So, I'd better go call her, and then enjoy that i can still go back and actually, genuinely enjoy the same heartwarming unfunny comics that made, and still make, her happy.

And here's one i think she'd probably enjoy:

Live from (Rochester) New York...

Because the dailies continue to be dismaaaaal (see below)....

....I'm going to take things back, with a couple classic strips from the 60s.

It's been said that politicians are unable to be genuinely funny, lest irreverent jokes or sarcasm be misunderstood as sincere belief or insensitivity.
That first cartoon is about as funny as a politician is allowed to be.  
The second cartoon is like a badass guy/gal who would make an awesome political leader, but keeps it too real to ever be elected.

I love that second strip.  It's over the top in a very uncharacteristic way, and  I'm not sure I completely get it.  What is it that sends this traveling sales man over the edge?  Was the scene of disarray with which he was met the final proof of life's meaninglessness? Of course, the point is that it is obviously NOT the best time for Mommy, and she really can't be bothered with dude's midlife crisis.  If that's the point, though, it could have been expressed without bringing suicide into the mix.  I'm pretty certain that if this strip was written today, the salesman would have finished his sentence with "day," for Mommy, that would have been interruption enough, and the whole thing would be clipped out by grandmothers with terrible senses of humor and taped to refrigerators all over the country.

Just in case you're curious, the highest suicide rates by profession are apparently food "batchmakers," doctors, and lathe and turning machine operators.

Though the onion-tear gag has been done many times, many ways, i think this rendition is just downright sweet.  Compared to more recent strips, in which everything the kids say seems so self-consciously adorable, Billy, Dolly and Jeffy seem completely lost in the fear that they've done something terrible.  Some childhood's scariest moments come when we don't understand what our parents are doing, and i think this captures that feeling well.

Sweets and Treats Part 2

Happy Halloween!

P.S. Boy, is my face red!  i just noticed the duel writing credit -Jeff AND Bil-on this strip, so disregard the attribution griping in my last post.  Apparently, Bil's son Jeff works as his assistant, and is expected to take over when his father retired.  BUT! I still suspect Bil has minimal involvement in the strip.  Prove me wrong!

Sweets and Treats

Why do i even look at the daily cartoons?

I hate to be negative, but these daily strips prove time and again that the Family Circus is a shadow of its former self.

 First of all, look at that crappy drawing.  It looks like something from a bootleg dollar store coloring book. I know they never looked realistic, but their heads weren't always amoeba shaped. I'm pretty convinced that Bil Keane in nothing more than a Orville Redenbacherstyle figurehead, with little or nothing to do with the actual creation of the strip .. if he's even still alive!  If his son -- occasional "guest" cartoonist "Billy" -- is actually doing all the work, i don't see why they don't just admit it.

Second of all, this strip takes the "non-joke" -- something the series has already perfected --  to a new level.  "Your tummy could use some cake, Jeffy?  And? That's it?"  I keep re-reading it, thinking I MUST be missing something, but there is nothing. 

(Note that Dolly seems to be looking right at the camera, something I don't think I've ever seen any of the family do.  Billy Keane breaks down the forth wall!)

Compare to this sweets-related cartoon from the early 80s:

(sorry for the blurry phone photo)

This one of my top 5 favorite FC strips. Unlike the cake cartoon, this one makes me smile every time i read it. Look at how tired Billy's eyes are.  Is he diabetic?  But even on the edge of  fainting, he never for a moment forgets how to turn a phrase.

Jeffy could really stand to take a page from Billy's book....but that's kind of always been true.

(Dedicated to Dower of Refuse, lover of sweets)

Right now I'm sitting in a coffee shop with my back to the window and I'm feeling embarrassed at the prospect of some passerby looking in and seeing me reading the Family Circus website (www.familycircus.com .. check it out! Lots of fun.) But what is there to be ashamed of?  What's wrong with a 27 year old checking up on the daily activities of America's Most Perfect Family?

And this is what they're up to today, apparently.  I really don't have much to say about this, aside from: this is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with TFC. This is pointless, sentimental garbage.  What's the joke here?  Stupid Jeffy thinks his "dog is people"?  "Kids say the darndest things"?  Keane, if this is your definition of "darndest," you need to expand your horizons.  Just because it's cute when your own children/ grandchildren say it, doesn't mean it will satisfy the rest of America's comic readers.

I don't want to get too negative here... there's already a guy who does that, and his name is The Comics Curmudgeon (check out http://joshreads.com after you get bored with the Family Circus site).  So, here's something positive: i couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the dog who isn't "Barfy," and now i know its "Sam."

Steve Vs. Bil -or- Broken Family Circus

This is one of my all-time favorite Family Circus cartoons. 

It’s also the image they use on TFC Wikipedia page, which is weird, because I don’t think the author of that page could have chosen a less representative example of the strip as a whole. 

It is, however, a great example of how good TFC used to be.  First of all, look at how adorable the kids are!  

Second of all, the joke is about boozing.  Secret boozing.  Around kids!  And then driving them home! It’s funny and cute in the same way that it’s funny and cute when an already flush-faced Don Draper gets lil Sally to fix him another Old Fashioned. 

Thirdly, and most importantly, this is NOT the same Daddy you see in later cartoons.  I’m not sure when the change was made (I haven’t reached that level of FC expertise yet) but the newer father has a full head of yellow hair and glasses with no visible eyes.  I know, sometimes illustrated characters slowly morph over time (see: Arthur the Aardvark’s slowly disappearing nose or the Simpson's wobbly lines), but these are two different dudes.  The Daddy in this early cartoon is named Steve, and the blond, bespectacled daddy is named Bil.    Steve has a grouchy, downtrodden countenance, while Bil has a constant expression of dull surprise. Steve is a gritty guys’ guy, a WWII vet, a true man of the 50s, grimly and drunkenly ushering his family into a turbulent new decade.  Bil is gentle, sensitive, sentimental, and a little clueless-- and more fitting for an increasingly progressive wife, audience, and world. Did Thel (aka Mommy) kick Steve to the curb for a more modern man?   

I’ll trust that Thel made the decision that was right for her, but when Steve disappeared, he took along the strip’s mild -- but genuinely funny  --irreverence.     

Billy's School Daze

 With the yin of Billy’s earlier mentioned sass comes the yang of world-weariness. Billy’s the only kid in the family who has real schoolwork to deal with, and the only one who can really appreciate the freedom of summer vacation.

Keane starts crankin’ out the vacation-fun comics in early June and, like clockwork, bums us all out three months later with back-to-school themed strips. Who are these for?  Would a 3^rd grader sigh “Aint that the truth” while reading this? Personally, this particular comic gives me both a sensation of mild relief – I never have to be in 2^nd grade again -- and dry bitterness – “Oh, you think that’s bad, you shortsighted brat?  Just wait till you grow up and bid adieu to summer vacation forever!”

I actually think Billy is at his best while school is in session.  His June-August Tom Sawyer-style swagger is pretty dull, but the rest of the year, Billy is made tolerable by the responsibilities he must bear.  And a lot of the time he’s drawn with dark circles under his eyes, and that’s just visual comedy gold.  Cracks me up every time.

If I had to introduce the Family Circus to someone who had never seen is before, this one, September 13th's daily, wouldn't be a bad place to start.

One of the enduring tenets of the Family Circus, one that Bil Keane revisits again and again and again, is that there is nothing funnier or more adorable than when the nuances of the English language cause misunderstandings between children and adults.  Now and then, Kean will devote an entire full-color Sunday comic to this concept, with four or five examples.  In one, Jeffy might overhear Mommy telling Daddy, "Mr. Smith's secretary is such a dear," and picture a doe sitting at a desk. Or Daddy might scold a confused Dolly for leaving the door ajar.

This cartoon takes that concept to another level, and hints at Billy's budding rebelliousness.  It's as if Billy knows about the cute misunderstanding cliche and is using it to his advantage. Billy is, by far, the "baddest" of the four kids.  Dolly's a whiny tattle tale, Jeffy's a wimp, and PJ's a mildly precocious-- if still bland --baby, but none of them have Billy's capacity for infuriating defiance. In a different world, Billy could be like those corner kids on The Wire, answering police questioning with "huh?"

In any case, Billy's got a good point here.  No wonder Mommy looks so pissed.

"It's Complicated" with The Family Circus

I loved the Family Circus when i was very young because, I think, I had a child's poor taste, and enjoyed anything i could actually read. One panel?  I could handle that, no sweat.  I might even cut it out if it tickled me enough. I can't pinpoint the exact moment i began to regard the comic with contempt ( i do remember unironically selecting "A Special Valentine with the Family Circus" to watch at my annual V-Day sleepover when i was 9, so it must have been after that)  Once that contempt appeared, though, my hate for Bil Keanes perfect family and their adorable interactions-- which weren't even jokes most of the time-- was matched by very little.

I guess its true what they say, hate is the closest thing to love, because all of a sudden, about 7 years ago, i started to secretly love the Family Circus.  Mostly it was just that i loved to hate those lil' dopes, but sometimes i  found myself LOVE loving them, and even becoming -- this is embarrassing -- a little jealous of their perfect lives.

So, what's this blog about, anyway?  I love talking about the Family Circus (i been know to use TFC antidotes to "break the ice" with friends of friends, new co-workers, etc), but most other people don't care, so i'm hoping to get all my comix talk out here. 

I'm not sure I've seen any serious explorations of TFC's divisiveness, though it seems most people feel either a strong warmth or disgust for the series.  With the exception of Nietzsche Family Circus, internet parodies are usually about as clever as a picture of a frazzled looking Mommy, surrounded  by children, asking Daddy, "Is it too late to have an abortion?"  Actually, that one isn't too bad. Usually they're worse.  But i digress. The point is, this is a place to discuss Mommy, Daddy, Billy, Jeffy, Dolly, P.J.-- and yes, even Barfy -- in all their terror and glory.