THE FAMILY CIRCUS
by Bil Keane
Bil Keane never formally studied art, but by faithfully re-creating the world around him, he developed the phenomenally successful cartoon panel "The Family Circus."
The panel records the lives of an average American family, made up of Mommy and Daddy, and their four children: Billy, Dolly, Jeffy and PJ. Their two dogs, Barfy and Sam, Kittycat and grandparents round out the cast.
The daily panels are routinely drawn within a circle, underscoring the sense of closeness between the characters.
The panel has been embraced by people the world over, as "The Family Circus" continues to show us how the American family lives now. King Features Syndicate distributes the comic to more than 1,500 newspapers worldwide, making it the most widely syndicated panel in America today.
Keane was born Oct. 5, 1922, in Philadelphia. He taught himself to draw while at Northeast Catholic High School.
Keane started out imitating the drawing styles of some of the New Yorker magazine cartoonists of the late 1930s, such as George Price, Richard Decker, Peter Arno, Robert Day and Whitney Darrow. After years of imitation, Keane's own drawing style began to emerge.
In the late '30s, Keane was working with a group of friends putting out a satire magazine, The Saturday Evening Toast, when he decided to drop the second L in "Bill."
"I really did it just to be different," he says. "I thought it was a little more distinguished, and started signing my cartoons that way. And it stuck."
His first job after high school was as a messenger at the Philadelphia Bulletin. While serving in the Army, 1942-45, he drew for Yank magazine, and he created the "At Ease with the Japanese" feature for Pacific Stars and Stripes while in Tokyo.
After the war he returned to the Bulletin and got a job drawing spot cartoons and caricatures for the entertainment section. He did a weekly Sunday comic for the Bulletin called "Silly Philly," which was about a Quaker character based on William Penn. He also edited a weekly supplement in the Sunday paper, called "Fun Book."
In 1948 he married Thelma Carne, an Australian he had met during the war. The Keanes lived for 10 years in Roslyn, Pa., where their real live family circus was born.
In 1954 Keane launched his "Channel Chuckles" television humor cartoon for newspapers, and it was distributed by The Register and Tribune Syndicate of Des Moines, Iowa, for 23 years.
He sold gag cartoons regularly to most major magazines before creating "The Family Circus."
When the income from "Channel Chuckles" and his free-lance work enabled him to leave the Bulletin, Keane and his family moved to Arizona.
Keane quickly realized that one of the beautiful things about the cartoon business was that it allowed him to live anywhere there is a mailbox.
"Working at home for the first time with our five children under foot, I discovered that most of the magazine cartoons I was selling had to do with family life and small children. I then decided to produce 'The Family Circus,'" he says.
For six months the feature was called "The Family Circle." Then the magazine of that name objected, and the "le" was changed to "us."
Through the years, Keane has made his family life the center of his professional world. The first "Family Circus" cartoon, in February 1960, showed Mommy surrounded by a roomful of toy clutter, answering the door to a survey person who asked, "Any children?"
Keane does not always try to make his cartoons especially funny.
"I would rather have the readers react with a warm smile, a tug at the heart or a lump in the throat as they recall doing the same things in their own families," he says.
Keane says he believes that the family is the source of a lot of happiness, a lot of love and a lot of laughs.
"I like to feel that what I'm doing portrays this: a family where there is love between mother, father and the kids. It's a subject that is dear to me," he says.
Since 1978, he has created three animated specials for television. All have been ratings successes.
He is the author of more than 60 books, most recently "Count Your Blessings," published by Focus on the Family in 1995. New collections of Keane's cartoons have been published regularly by Fawcett Books. The newest anthology, "Daddy's Cap Is on Backwards," was published in June 1996.
The characters also appear on calendars and other products. More than 5,000 elementary schools in the United States and Canada subscribe to a series of biweekly "Family Circus Spirit" posters, which promote self-esteem, respect for teachers and school pride.
"The Family Circus" regularly rates No. 1 in newspaper surveys and has won several awards. In 1982 Keane was named Cartoonist of the Year by the National Cartoonists Society, and he received the prestigious Reuben Award.
Keane has always tried to portray the typical American family. His "Family Circus" characters are based on his own family: himself, Thel and his five children, Gayle, Neal, Glen, Christopher and Jeff.
Glen Keane is now a prominent animator for Walt Disney Pictures, having created the characters of Ariel ("The Little Mermaid"), the Beast ("Beauty and the Beast") and most recently, Pocahontas.
Jeff Keane, now 39, works as his father's assistant.
Daughter Gayle, model for Dolly, handles the volumes of mail, requests from charities for originals and myriad other duties, and travels from her home in California to her parents' home in Arizona one week each month to do the filing and support work for their corporation.
Today, nine grandchildren provide the cartoonist with a whole new generation of ideas.
Mommy of the cartoon resembles Thel Keane, who acts as model, critic and editor of her husband's work. Like her cartoon counterpart, Thel is involved in community affairs, parent-school activities and all the things important to a suburban family.
Even though the Keanes live in a sunny climate, the cartoonist shows the family living in a typical, Middle-American split-level house. He uses snow scenes each winter, drawing from memories of his Pennsylvania boyhood.
Rather than pinpointing any part of the country as the place where the family lives, he prefers to have readers feel "The Family Circus" lives right down the street from their home.
The popularity of "The Family Circus" is found in the fact that the cartoon reminds people of all ages about themselves, their kids and their parents.
"If 'The Family Circus' has any social value," Keane says, "it shows parents that their children are normal. And if there is a philosophy behind the feature, it's this: A home filled with love and laughter is the happiest place in the world."