RIP not-so-funny guy

Bill Keane, who created the "Family Circus", died.

http://news.yahoo.com/family-circus-creator-bil-keane-dies-89-175700917.html

I find it notable because this was one of the first comics that I ever read when I was in elementary school. I even found it funny for a while. But then it got repetitious. Then tedious. Then horrible.

IMO, the "Family Circus" may be less funny - in it's unadulterated, unaltered form - than any other comic in the newspaper. "Marmeduke" may be the exception.

So I've got mixed feelings. Although I do wonder if Billy, age 8, will draw a map to the funeral home for us.

 

Mort Walker came up with new stuff for TWO strips.

 

Ernest Borgnine is 94.

 

Family Circus was pretty bad. But not all newspaper comics suck. I'm a huge Blondie fan and I like Get Fuzzy and Foxtrot. The problem with the "older" strips is as they get older the people don't like to see change. Take Peanuts for example, who's going to read the strip as Charlie Brown gets married to the Redheaded girl and lives happily ever after with some hijinks in there? It'd be Blondie.

I think the 80's had the best strips, Far side, Calvin and Hobbes, Funky Winkerbean, Garfield (to some degree), Peanuts, Hi and Lois, Beetle Bailey, Wizard of Id, BC, Shoe, Tank McNamarra, a relevant Doonesbury came back, even Peanuts and I'm sure I am forgetting some.

Some of the writers quit while still on top and some turned the strip over to a "factory" to put out cookie cutter comics. I did like what my homeboy Tom batiuk did with Funky, graduated them out and restarted the strip 10 years later, then the tear jerker Lisa's story where Wes' wife Lisa goes through the whole breast cancer thing and dies. Very touching and educational in that strip. Not funny, but there were moments, it was just like life.And there in lies the problem, some strips work too hard to be funny and relevant, when they should just retire and let the strip go out being missed as a great innovating force like Larson did with Far Side, like Watterson did with Calvin and Hobbes and so on. Or show character growth as they did in Blondie when she got a job or now Archie who got engaged.... they may not set the world on fire but those 2 strips have been around forever and show growth.

Garfield was killed by Jim Davis' commercialiaztion and his adding "Nermal". Although he has added growth with Jon having the vet as his g/f and Garfield having his cat chick. Get Fuzzy is just hilarious to me though.

 

Well, I enjoyed Family Circus whenever I read the comics, which wasn't that much, so it didn't have a chance to wear on me.
Could never stand Alley Oop, though.

RIP, Mr Keane.

 

Never got into Family Circus. Always seemd to be the same. Not much diversity. But he did build a following and was successful. It's a throw back to a simpler life. Something that really doesn't exist today.

Different strokes.

 

Wonder who killed him? Not me, I'm guessing.

 

I think it was the maps, they were somewhat original, but after awhile they repeated. I think his son has been doing the strip though for years. Like when Mort Walker retired and Dik Browne (I think he's dead Dik) they left their strips, Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois and Hagar the Horrible to their sons. Chick Young gave his strip "Blondie" to his son. All of which have flourished and fallen and gone back up.

I give credit to Charles Schulz, he stated before he died that no one would do peanuts after him. They just run old ones now.

I know when I read a paper the first thing I go to are the comics then the sports and then the news.

 

Now he's a simple pencil drawing hanging out on a cloud looking down at all of us.

 

They were "quaint" when "quaint" was passe. I do remember the "not me" ghost and it was humorous the first few times he used that, then just as the maps, that bit got repetitive.
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I guess I can say my fascination with newspaper comics stems from my real young childhood. My dad would get up on Sunday mornings and read the paper on the shitter, then come out and read the sunday funnies to me. He did so creatively, using a different voice for every character. He'd even read Mary Worth and Rex Morgan MD to me. I grew sad when that ended. I do know because of that it helped me learn to read and comprehend what I read. Simply because as dad read the comics I would ask what a word meant and he would tell me. Wow, haven't thought of those times in years.