Bil Keane has found the "funny" in families and has shared the chuckles in the creation of his comic panel, The Family Circus. Having a family of five kids under his own roof has provided years of inspiration.
As a teenager attending Northeast Catholic High School in Philadelphia, Bil Keane taught himself to draw and cartoon. (He was born in Philadelphia, PA on October 5, 1922.) He copied the work of cartoonists, such as Robert day, Whitney Darrow and others appearing in the New Yorker in the 1930s, until he became skilled in the art of cartooning. Around that time, he decided to drop the second "l" in Bill, just to be different.
The Philadelphia Bulletin hired Keane as a messenger, his first job after high school. Cartooning was in his blood, though. He drew comics for Yank and created features for Stars and Stripes magazine while he served in the military from 1942 to 1946. He continued to submit caricatures and other cartoons for the Philadelphia newspaper. While stationed in Australia, he met his bride-to-be, Thelma Carne. They married in Brisbane, Australia in 1948 and moved to Pennsylvania. He returned to the Philadelphia Bulletin and worked as a staff artist for 15 years. Keane developed "Silly Philly," a feature for the Sunday comics based on the founder of Philadelphia, William Penn. *(1)
Always inventive, Bil Keane created Channel Chuckles, debuting in 1954. The newspaper cartoon poked fun at the new and burgeoning television industry and made readers laugh for 23 years. The comic was such a success that he could leave his newspaper job behind to move his growing family to sunny Arizona.
A houseful of kids inspired the imaginative cartoonist to create another strip. Bil would make notes of their funny sayings and actions on recipe cards. Later in the 1980's, he said he still had enough funny stuff to keep him cartooning "for maybe another 50 years." *(2)
Scampering onto the pages of 19 newspapers in February of 1960, The Family Circus began with characters of parents, pets, neighbours and three kids. Billy, Dolly and Jeffy were patterned after Bil's own kids, Glen, Neal, Gayle, Christopher and Jeff. The parents were, of course, based on the cartoonist himself and his wife, Thelma. The angelic grandparents are portrayals of Bil's parents, now deceased. Baby PJ, the fourth cartoon child, was added in 1962. Keane has built features into his cartoon that immediately mark it as his work. The children's dotted meandering around the neighbourhood, Billy's placement as substitute artist "while Bil is away" and the panel's base of a circle rather than the usual rectangular format all scream "Keane" to his readers.
