Did Thr Guy Who Draws Family Circle Die

Comic strip

The Family unit Circus
An early strip featuring (L to R) Daddy (Bil), Dolly, Billy, Mommy (Thel), and Jeffy. A 4th child, P.J., was introduced in 1962.
Author(southward)	Bil Keane Jeff Keane
Electric current status/schedule	Running
Launch date	February 29, 1960
Alternating proper name(s)	The Family Circle Family-Go-Round
Syndicate(south)	(Current) King Features Syndicate (Previous) Register and Tribune Syndicate (1960–1986)
Genre(s)	Humor, gag cartoon, family values, religious
Preceded by	Light-headed Philly

The Family unit Circus (originally The Family Circle , also Family-Go-Round ) is a syndicated comic strip created by cartoonist Bil Keane and, since Bil's expiry in 2011, is currently written, inked, and rendered (colored) by his son, Jeff Keane. The strip generally uses a unmarried captioned console with a round edge, hence the original proper noun of the series, which was changed following objections from the magazine Family Circle. The series debuted on February 29, 1960, and has been in continuous production e'er since. According to publisher Male monarch Features Syndicate, it is the most widely syndicated cartoon panel in the globe, appearing in 1,500 newspapers.^[one] Compilations of Family Circus comic strips have sold over xiii meg copies worldwide.

Characters [edit]

Family [edit]

The fundamental characters of Family unit Circus are a family whose surname is rarely mentioned (although the cartoon of August 26, 2013, in which Billy refers to "Grandma Keane" and "Grandma Carne" indicates the same surnames as the author's family). The parents, Bil and Thelma (Thel), are modeled after the author and his wife, Thelma Carne Keane.^{[2] [three] [4]} Their four children, Billy, Dolly, Jeffy, and P.J., are fictionalized composites of the Keanes' five children. With the exception of P.J., no characters have aged appreciably during the run of the strip.

Bil (named Steve in the early years of the strip) works in an office, and he is believed to exist a cartoonist, most likely based on the author of the strip because he draws big circles on paper, presumably a drawing version of the Family Circus. Some early panels referred to Bil as a veteran of World State of war Ii.

Thel is a college-educated homemaker. The Los Angeles Times ran a feature article on the Thelma character when Keane updated her hairstyle in 1996.^[five]

The eldest child is 7-year-onetime Billy. A recurring theme involves Billy every bit a substitute cartoonist, generally filling in for a Sunday strip. The strips purportedly fatigued by Billy are crudely rendered and reverberate his understanding of the world and sense of humor. The first use of this gag by Keane was in This Calendar week mag in 1962 in a drawing titled "Life in Our House" which attributed the childish drawings to his 6-yr-one-time son, Chris.^[6] Keane also modeled Billy after his eldest son Glen, at present a prominent Disney animator.

The grapheme of five-year-old Dolly was modeled after Keane's daughter and eldest child, Gayle.^[7] Dolly was a nickname that Thelma Keane called little girls.^[7]

The character of 3-twelvemonth-old Jeffy was named and modeled afterward Keane'due south youngest child, Jeff.^[7]

The comic family unit's youngest child P.J. (Peter John) was introduced into the strip through a series of cartoons about the Family unit Circus Mommy's pregnancy, which culminated in the infant's birth on Baronial 1, 1962.^[eight] P.J. grows to exist most i year old, and rarely speaks.

Extended family [edit]

Bil's mother (Florence, but usually called Grandma) appears regularly in the strip and manifestly lives near the family. Bil'south father (Al, chosen Granddad by the kids and Bil) is expressionless simply occasionally appears in the strip every bit a spirit or watching from up in sky. Bil's father (equally a spirit) plays a prominent role in the Television receiver special A Family Circus Christmas. Al died later on the launch of the feature. Notwithstanding, on November 25, 2012, reference is made to his having died before Jeffy was born fifty-fifty though the grapheme Al was featured in strips prior to his Granddaddy's death.

Thel's parents are both live but obviously live several hundred miles away in a rural area. Strips in the past have mentioned them living in Iowa, only i 2007 strip mentioned Florida. The family occasionally visits them for holiday.

Pets [edit]

The family pets are ii dogs—a Labrador named Barfy and a shaggy-haired mutt named Sam, a stray the children brought abode on January 26, 1970—and an orange tabby cat named Kittycat.

Other characters [edit]

• Morrie is a playmate of Billy, and the only recurring black grapheme in the strip. Keane created the graphic symbol in 1967 as a tribute to his close friend Morrie Turner, creator of Wee Pals.^[9]
• Mr. Horton is Bil's boss.

Location [edit]

The Family unit Circus takes place in Scottsdale, Arizona. They often visit a popular ice foam parlor named the Sugar Bowl (based on the bodily aforementioned-named restaurant which features many strips signed by Keane), and Jeffy once went to St. Joseph's Hospital for a tonsillectomy. Thel was seen playing tennis with a noise marked "Scottsdale Racket", and Bil mentioned moving up to B class at Scottsdale Racket Order in a 1984 strip. Also, a sign for Paradise Valley, where Bil Keane lived the latter part of his life, is seen in one 1976 strip. Sometimes the family is depicted enjoying snow at their home in the strip, whereas Scottsdale gets very piddling snowfall in the winter. Bil Keane commented that he took aspects of his adolescence in Pennsylvania, such equally snowfall, and added them to the strip.

Themes [edit]

Organized religion [edit]

One distinguishing feature of the Family Circus is the frequent use of Christian imagery and themes, ranging from generic references to God to Jeffy heedless nearly Jesus at the grocery store. Keane states that the religious content reflects his own upbringing and family traditions.^[10] Keane was Roman Catholic, and in past cartoons the children have been shown attending Catholic schools with sisters as teachers and attending Catholic church services, much as Keane did in his babyhood years at St. William Parish in Philadelphia. Keane was a frequent contributor to his high school paper, The Good News, at Northeast Catholic High Schoolhouse for Boys in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he graduated in 1940.^[eleven] Some of his comics with scenes in Baton'due south bedroom depict an NC pennant hanging on the wall, a tribute to his alma mater and his Catholic educational activity.

Billy the Substitute Cartoonist [edit]

Sometimes Keane's strips would have crude drawings purportedly done by "Billy, Historic period 7". Some of "Baton's" drawings would be explaining vocabulary, merely he does not empathise the right word, such as disruptive "hysterical" with "historical" or defining "acquire" as "a grouping of singers in church". Oft the "Billy" drawings would show a more detailed drawing of Keane'southward, such as Billy crying over losing a game to his father, then the next strip saying "This is what actually happened, past Billy", showing the crude cartoon of Billy winning and an annoyed Bil Keane storming off saying "No more games, I gotta draw Sunday's cartoon!" One series of strip for the dailies in 1990 had the father off on a business concern trip, whereas "Billy" explains a multitude of childish reasons for his absence, such every bit alien abduction or existence baked into a witch'south pie. The story arc ended with a Keane drawing showing the father back home and the kids asking almost such preposterous happenings, to the dad's la-la-land.

Dotted lines [edit]

Ane of the best-known features of Keane's work is the dotted line comics, showing the characters' paths through the neighborhood or business firm with a thick dotted line. The earliest appearance of the dotted line was on April 8, 1962 (an un-dotted path had first appeared on February 25). This concept has been parodied by other comic strips, including Pearls Before Swine, For Better or For Worse, FoxTrot, Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, Liō, Marvin, and xkcd. In an interview, Jeff Keane, who now produces the strip, described how he creates the line: by drawing i continuous black line and and so breaking it into segments with white.^[12] The dotted line has taken on different formats, such equally when the family took a vacation to San Francisco and showed them in a dotted line down the famous Lombard Street ("the crookedest street in the world"), or Jeffy and his granddad taking a walk in the park, where Jeffy is shown running around pell-mell marked by a squiqqly dotted line, every bit opposed to a long rigid dotted line mark his grandad's, who stayed on the path. Other strips would bear witness the dotted line with captions, such every bit when Baton used the restroom when the family unit was at a pancake house, with captions of Billy's lingering ("helps busboy choice up pieces of broken plate", "finds quarter in payphone", "uses quarter to play at an arcade cabinet").

Gremlins [edit]

In April 1975, Keane introduced an invisible gremlin named "Non Me", who watches while the children attempt to shift blame for a criminality past saying, "Non me." Additional gremlins named "Ida Know" (in September 1975), "Nobody," "O. Yeah!," and "Just B. Cause" were introduced in later years. Although information technology is clear that the parents do not accept the existence of the gremlins, they did include them as members of the family, perhaps natural language-in-cheek, when existence interviewed by a member of the U.South. Census Bureau. Some other time when Thel was sick of hearing about the gremlins from the kids ("Who's been rummaging in Gramma's bag?" "Not me!"), she asked her mother-in-law if she ever dealt with such absurdity, causing Florence to remark, "Well, I'g sure that he has been effectually at least since I was a picayune girl," in which there is a flashback to Florence's childhood with her father enervating to know, "Who scratched my new Glenn Miller record?," with little Florence firmly stating, "Not me!", and the "Not Me" entity smugly standing by.

Grown children [edit]

Ane theme Keane tried from time to time was picturing the children as adults, or what might come of it. One time when Billy had been asked by Thelma non to leave the house until he finished his homework, she told him, "One day when you lot are grown upward yous will thank me for this!," causing Baton to imagine the absurdity of himself as a total grown man paying a visit to his elderly mother only to thank her for telling him that every bit a kid. Other developed ideas included the parents telling Jeffy not to be shy when they invited friends over, and and then he is pictured 25 years later equally an approachable late dark talk show host akin to Jay Leno. Some other example was P.J. not wishing to exist introduced to the toddler girl of family friends, only to show thirty years subsequently that both are now grown and are celebrating their hymeneals day. Notwithstanding another had Thel telling Billy she cannot make clean up afterwards him his whole life, and so imagining a full-grown Billy every bit a man of affairs running a chain of "Loftier Hat Hotels", and an aged, weary Thel working as one of the maids.

Family unit car [edit]

For the first 25 years, the family car was a station carriage, first based on Keane's own 1961 Buick.^[13] In 1985, a year subsequently the introduction of the Plymouth Voyager and the Contrivance Caravan, the family appears in a serial of cartoons trading in the station railroad vehicle for a new minivan (when the salesman assures Mom and Dad that "Lee Iacocca stands behind every vehicle we sell," the children scuttle around and expect behind the van to see if Mr. Iacocca is back there). The family unit's minivan resembles Dodge/Plymouth twins and includes the Chrysler corporate pentastar logo on its hood. The children enjoy showing off the new van to their friends: "And it has a sliding door, like an lift." Early on strips also showed the family in a small convertible, a extravaganza based on Keane's Sunbeam Rapier.^[13]

Format [edit]

Daily strip [edit]

The daily strip consists of a unmarried captioned panel with a round border. The panel is occasionally split in ii halves. One unusual practice in the series is the occasional use of both speech balloons within the picture and captions outside the circle. The daily strip does not generally follow a weekly story arc, with the exception of family vacations.

Sunday strip [edit]

The format of the Sunday strip varies considerably from week to week, though in that location are several well-known recurring themes. One recurring theme is a single pic surrounded by multiple speech balloons, representing the children's response to a given scenario, although the speaker of any given speech balloon is never explicitly shown (this format began on May 30, 1965).

Other media [edit]

Book collections [edit]

There are 89 compilations of Family Circus cartoons. For a full list of book titles, see Family Circus collections.

Television [edit]

The Family Circus characters appeared in blithe course in 3 television holiday specials, all circulate on NBC: A Special Valentine with the Family unit Circus (1978),^[14] A Family unit Circus Christmas (1979),^[15] and A Family unit Circus Easter (1982).^[sixteen] The Easter special featured jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie as the Easter Bunny. This special is a musical and features Dolly singing "Easter Bunny Lumba".^[sixteen]

Feature motion-picture show [edit]

In October 2010, 20th Century Fox and Walden Media appear that they had caused the film rights for a live-activity feature film based on the Family Circus drawing.^[17] Nichole Millard and Kathryn Price have been hired to accommodate the comic strip as a live-action project.^[eighteen]

Video game [edit]

An educational video game was released for domicile computers in 1992. Called Our House featuring the Family Circus (a.k.a. Now and And so), the game compares life in modern times to those when the parents, grandparents and other ancestors of the comic were young.

Parodies [edit]

The Family Circus has been widely satirized in film, television, and other daily comic strips. In an interview with The Washington Mail service, Keane said that he was flattered and believed that such parody "...is a compliment to the popularity of the feature..."^[19] The official Family unit Circus website contains a sampling of syndicated comic strips from other authors which parody his characters.^[20]

Some paper comic strips take devoted unabridged storylines using Family Circus characters. In 1994, the surreal Zippy the Pinhead comic strip made multiple references to the Family Circus, including an extended series during which the titular grapheme, a pinhead, sought "Th' Way" to enlightenment from Bil, Thel, Billy, and Jeffy.^[21] Bil Keane was credited as "invitee cartoonist" on these strips, drawing the characters exactly as they announced in their ain strip, but in Zippy's world as drawn past Zippy creator Bill Griffith.^[21] Griffith described the Family Circus as "the last remaining folk art strip." Griffith said, "Information technology's supposed to be the image of squareness, simply information technology turns the corner into a hip zone."^[22]

For the 1997 April Fools' Day comic strip switcheroo, Dilbert creator Scott Adams swapped cartoons with Keane;^[23] and Stephan Pastis drew a series in which Family unit Circus "invaded" Pearls Before Swine in 2007. Pastis, who had a close relationship with Bil and Jeff Keane, created numerous parodies of Family Circus "considering it was an icon."^[24]

The Dysfunctional Family unit Circus was a satire website which paired Keane's illustrations with user-submitted captions. Keane claimed to have institute the site funny at kickoff. However, disapproving feedback from his readership, coupled with the website's use of double entendre and vulgarity, prompted Keane to request that the site be discontinued.

The webcomic Jersey Circus is a mashup of artwork from The Family unit Circus and dialogue from the reality prove Jersey Shore. It juxtaposes the innocent artwork of the comic with the oft adult dialogue from the show to parody both media phenomena.^[25]

The 1999 novel The Funnies, past J. Robert Lennon, centered around a dysfunctional family whose tardily patriarch drew a cartoon similar to The Family Circus. Lennon later said, although there was a "resemblance", he did not "know anything well-nigh Bil Keane and made up my characters from scratch."^[26]

The drawing has been the discipline of gags on many goggle box sitcoms including episodes of Pinky and the Brain, Mystery Scientific discipline Theater 3000, The Simpsons, Drawn Together, Robot Chicken, Mad, an episode of Family unit Guy ("Dog Gone")^{[27] [28]} and the 1999 movie Go.

In the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series, there is a comic the main character and his dad despise called L'il Cutie which shares similarities to Family Circus, including a child saying naively innocent things, the writer inspired by his kid, and the son working on the comic as an adult.

Some Pearls Earlier Swine strips include appearances by the Family Circus characters or parodic Family unit Circus strips. In one serial of strips, Rat is captured by Family Circus fans after poking fun at the Family Circus. In the calendar week of June 27, 2005, Stephan Pastis portrayed the drawing Keane family inviting Osama bin Laden into their house. Bin Laden is captured past the police while following Billy's dotted lines, and the whole family is imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for harboring a terrorist.^[29]

The 2016 graphic novel The Fun Family by Benjamin Frisch tells the dark story of the family of the creator of a Family Circus-like strip.^[30]

References [edit]

1. ^ The Family Circus Archived 2004-04-01 at the Wayback Auto, Male monarch Features Syndicate, www.kingfeatures.com
2. ^ "Inspiration for 'Family Circus' Mommy dies". CNN. Archived from the original on 2008-05-27. Retrieved 2008-05-26 .
3. ^ Meyers, Amanda Lee (2008-05-27). "Thelma Keane; Wife Of Cartoonist Bil Keane". Associated Press Obituaries. The Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-05-29 .
4. ^ Inspiration For Circus Mom Dead at 82, United Press International, UPI.com, May 26, 2008
5. ^ Baum, Geraldine (May 23, 1996). "Mommy Finally Makes The Cut". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles. Retrieved May nine, 2021.
6. ^ This Week, upshot of January 7, 1962, Final Express joy Page
7. ^ ^{a b c} Keane, Christopher (Nov 2009). "Raising the Big Tiptop". The Family Circus: Daily and Lord's day Comics 1960-1961. The Library of American Comics. Vol. i. IDW. pp. 22–23. ISBN9781600105487.
8. ^ Keane, Christopher (June 2010). "Calculation to the Human activity". The Family unit Circus: Daily and Dominicus Comics 1962-1963. The Library of American Comics. Vol. 2. IDW Publishing. p. 10. ISBN9781600106576.
9. ^ Chang, Jeff (2009). "Morrie Turner and the Kids". The Believer (November/Dec). Retrieved 2013-03-xviii .
10. ^ Gunty, Christopher, Bil Keane's Family Circus, Saint Anthony's Messenger, Nov 2001
11. ^ "N Cosmic Falcons Merchandise | Celtic Shirts: Your Source for North Catholic Clothes and Trade".
12. ^ "All in the Family: A Cartooning Roundtable". December 25, 2017.
13. ^ ^{a b} Keane, Christopher (2010). Calculation to the Act. The Family Circus: Daily and Dominicus Comics. Vol. 1962–1963. IDW Publishing. pp. 7–18. ISBN978-1-60010-657-6.
14. ^ Woolery, George W. (1989). Animated Tv Specials: The Consummate Directory to the First Twenty-Five Years, 1962-1987. Scarecrow Printing. pp. 389–390. ISBN0-8108-2198-ii . Retrieved 27 March 2020.
15. ^ Woolery, pp.139-140
16. ^ ^{a b} Spurgeon, Tom (January 1, 2012). "Bil Keane, 1922-2011". The Comics Reporter . Retrieved 18 April 2015.
17. ^ Fleming, Mike (eight October 2010). "Flim-flam, Walden Media Win 'The Family unit Circus'". Borderline.com. Retrieved 2012-12-27 .
18. ^ McNary, Dave (October xix, 2012). "Play a trick on, Walden ready writers for 'Family Circus' film".
19. ^ "Comics: Come across the Artist", Washington Post Online, March i, 2002
20. ^ archive "Take-Offs Archived 2007-04-05 at the Wayback Machine, www.familycircus.com, retrieved 2009
21. ^ ^{a b} Bill Griffith, Still asking, "Are we having fun yet?", Interdisciplinary Comic Studies, Vol. i No. 2, 2004, ISSN 1549-6732
22. ^ Pat Seremet, "Zippy and The Family Circus--Together again!!", The Hartford Courant, July 11, 2002
23. ^ Zitz, Michael (April ane, 1997). "Apr Fools: This is some funny business". The Free Lance Star. p. D1.
24. ^ Pastis, Stephan (November 9, 2011). "The Dotted Line Fades Away — A Few Words About Bil Keane (1922-2011)". The Blog O' Stephan Pastis. stephanpastis.wordpress.com.
25. ^ Friedman, Megan (August thirty, 2010). "Jersey Circus Gives Family Values Some GTL". Time . Retrieved Baronial 31, 2010.
26. ^ J. Robert Lennon, Annotate, Rakes Progress, September 29, 2006
27. ^ Haque, Ahsan. "Family Guy: "Dog Gone" Review". IGN. Retrieved 2009-12-01 .
28. ^ "The Telly Critic.org - Episode 8 - Domestic dog Gone Review". The TV Critic.org. Retrieved 2009-12-02 .
29. ^ "Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis" Alive Journal, retrieved March 6, 2019
30. ^ McMillian Graeme (7 July 2016). "'The Fun Family' Comic Uncovers Darkness Backside Suburban Life (Exclusive Preview)". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2019-03-06 .

External links [edit]

• The Family Circus Official Homepage
• The Family Circus at Rex Features
• The Family Circus at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on June 27, 2016.
• Bil Keane Cartoons 1954–1966 at Syracuse University (primary source material)

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_Circus

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