CSotD: Bil Keane 1922-2011
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I ran this Bil Keane cartoon, from the pages of "Yank the Army Weekly," recently, and posted it again on Facebook yesterday when Bil's son Jeff announced his death.
Of course, Bil Keane is not remembered for the cartoons he did as a GI during WWII, though the war in the Pacific is how he met his wife, Thel, in Australia. Keane's claim to fame is as the creator of "The Family Circus," an iconic view of kids and families that has probably appeared on more refrigerators than the words "General Electric."
As a kid, "Family Circus" was one of the strips I looked for in the Sunday paper, and, as I got old enough to understand puns, I looked forward to the times when Billy would "fill in for his father."
I was old enough to know it was really still him doing it, and I guess that was one of the first times I'd been invited to look behind the curtain — though, in the animation field, both Walt Disney and Walter Lantz had been doing it for years on their TV shows.
Over at the Washington Post, Michael Cavna has a nice lineup of cartoonists talking about Bil Keane both as a childhood inspiration and as a person, and it strikes me that it's a shame more talk shows don't invite cartoonists on, because most of the cartoonists I've met have been interesting and fun people to talk to, and, as Rhymes With Orange creator Hilary Price notes in Cavna's column, "You see their work differently after that, because you've shaken the hand that holds the pen." (An interesting bit of synchronicity, since I'll be visiting her open studio this weekend and, if you're anywhere near Northampton, Mass., you should, too.)
I never met the man, but somewhere in the boxes around here I have a letter from him that is relevant both to this occasion and to this blog.
In 1998, I was writing a weekly column about family, education and kids, and there was a "Family Circus" cartoon one Sunday that showed Dolly coming home from school crying, and concluded with this panel:
I wrote a column about it in which I interviewed a couple of school superintendents and other people, all of whom denied that they knew of any school that forbade that kind of affectionate contact between teachers and kids, including one who said she'd quit being involved in education if it ever came to that point.
But I also quoted a network radio reporter who said that she'd quoted a school nurse once in a similar fashion, and the nurse was later approached by a superior who cautioned her against that kind of contact, and I conceded that, official rules aside, some misguided administrators might let panic and foolishness guide them in an unofficial capacity.
And I concluded:
"If Bil Keane's children were still as young in real life as they are in the strip, he'd probably know that. As it is, he likely gets his information the way many of us do: Second-hand and half-understood.
"'Family Circus' has built a huge readership for its joyous celebration of childhood and family life, but last week, that popular strip helped perpetuate a harmful myth.
"Well-trained, loving teachers are not just permitted, but actively encouraged to show their affection for children. Nor should anyone brand as insensitive or "politically correct" the real steps they take to protect their students from sexual abuse.
"Bil Keane obviously loves kids. But he let them down this time."
This seems like an odd and inappropriate time to put Bil Keane through the wringer, but, first of all, note that I didn't. It's not only more effective to express disappointment than anger, but that was what I was feeling.
Moreover, I sent him a copy of the column and he responded with a very kind, gentle letter explaining his feelings and intentions, which I ran as a postscript to a subsequent column (which has not been archived, and, while I'm sure the letter will turn up next week, I can't find it now).
I wasn't surprised to hear back from him in some form, but I was surprised at the warmth and graciousness of his response. When I hear cartoonists who knew him talk about what a great guy he was, I feel like I can back that up. There were many ways he could have responded to the column, but he not only took the high road but did it with grace and style.
That brief encounter was part of what set me on the road to this blog. There are people behind the comics, and most of them are pretty nice. It's a more pleasant start to my morning to find something nice to say about their work than to pick out things to be snarky about. I guess I learned that from Bil Keane, though others have emphasized it since.
His AP obit, which is worth reading in itself, included a quote from an interview in which he summed up the attitude that made Family Circus stand out from hundreds of strips about family life, and that made it such a classic, in talking about a panel he did in the mid-60s that helped set the direction of the feature.
It also makes for a nice bookend with my own anecdote about him:
"It showed Jeffy coming out of the living room late at night in pajamas and Mommy and Daddy watching television and Jeffy says, 'I don't feel so good, I think I need a hug.' And suddenly I got a lot 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."
That's a pretty good insight.
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