Philly-raised creator of ‘Family Circus’ dies

A little boy in pajamas enters the living room where his parents are watching TV late at night and says, "I don't feel so good. I think I need a hug."

Is there a dry eye in the house?

Bil Keane's famed comic feature "Family Circus" had many such tender moments, as the cartoonist sought to portray American family life as it is, or at least once was in more innocent times, over the 50 years it appeared in about 1,500 newspapers around the country.

The little boy who needed a hug was patterned after Bil's son, Jeff, who has been drawing the one-panel comic with his father's help for the last several years.

William Aloysius Keane, a native Philadelphian whose first cartoon was printed in the Daily News on May 21, 1936, a self-taught artist whose early work also appeared in the old Evening Bulletin, died Tuesday at his home in Paradise Valley, Ariz., near Phoenix. He was 89.

Bil never used his full name, and after he began drawing professionally he shortened his first name by dropping one of the l's - "just to be distinctive," he said.

Jeff, who lives in Laguna Hills, Calif., said his father died of congestive heart failure. His five children, nine grandchildren and his great-granddaughter and got a chance to visit him during the last month, Jeff said.

"I think that gave him great comfort and made his passing easy," Jeff said.

Bil always said he was surprised by the response to the hug panel.

"I got a lot of 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," he said after the panel appeared in the mid-'60s.

All of the characters in "Family Circus" are members of the Keane family, including the family pets, dogs Barfy and Sam and cat Kittycat.

"Everything that's happened in the strip has happened to me," Bil once said.

Mommy in the strip was his wife, the former Thelma "Thel" Carne, whom he met while serving in the Army in Australia. She died of Alzheimer's disease on May 22, 2008, depriving him of his inspiration and the person who ran his business affairs.

Although there are plenty of laughs in "Family Circle," Jeff said, "It was a different type of comic, and I think that was my Dad's genius - creating something that people could really relate to and wasn't necessarily meant to get a laugh. It was more of a warm feeling, or a lump in the throat."

Wednesday's panel in the Inquirer showed a little boy saying his prayers and telling his mother, "After I do my 'please blesses' can I throw in a few 'don't blesses'?"

Bil Keane was born in Philadelphia and taught himself to draw while a student at Northeast Catholic High School. He copied cartoons published in The New Yorker in the days when they were funny.

He worked as a messenger for the Evening Bulletin before serving three years in the Army in the Pacific Theater in World War II.

He drew for Yank and created the "At Ease With the Japanese" feature for the Pacific edition of Stars and Stripes.

He and his future wife worked in the same office.

"I had this desk alongside the most beautiful Australian 18-year-old girl with long brown hair," Bil said. "And I got up enough nerve to ask her for a date."

They were married in 1948 and moved to Philadelphia.

He went back to work for the Bulletin, this time as an artist. He created a strip called "Silly Philly," and, in 1953, a one-panel comic called "Channel Chuckles," lampooning the nascent medium of television.

In one panel, a mom in front of a televsion, crying baby on her lap, tells her husband, "She slept through two gun fights and a barroom brawl - then the commercial woke her up."

The Keane family moved to Arizona in 1959, where Bil created "Family Circus" in his home studio in 1960.

Arizona appeared in some panels, including one in 2004 in which the family visits the Grand Canyon and the kids ask, "Why are the rocks painted different colors?" and "What time does it close?'

Bil was president of the National Cartoonists Society from 1981 to 1983, and was the emcee of its annual awards banquet for 16 years.

He received numerous honors over the years, including being a four-time recipient of the cartoonist society's award for Best Syndicated Panel, winning in 1967, 1971, 1973 and 1974. He was named the society's Cartoonist of the Year and received its top honor, the Reuben Award.

He also received the Arizona Heritage Award in 1998.

"He was just our Dad," Jeff told the Associated Press. "The great thing about him was he worked at home, we got to see him all the time, and we would all sit down and have dinner together.

"What you see in 'Family Circus' is what we were and what we still are, just different generations."

His brother Tom had a six-decade career in journalism that included stints at the Northeast Times, the former Bristol Courier and the Wilmington News Journal, from which he retired in 1986. Tom died Dec. 2, 2010.

Besides Jeff and Bil's grandchildren and great-grandchild, he is survived a daughter, Gayle, and three other sons, Glen, Chris and Neal.

Services: Were being arranged.