Bil Keane, 89, cartoonist who drew 'Family Circus'

PHOENIX - Bil Keane's Family Circus comics entertained readers with a simple but sublime mix of humor and traditional family values for more than a half-century. The appeal endured, the author thought, because the American public needed the consistency.

Mr. Keane, 89, a Philadelphia native who started drawing the one-panel cartoon featuring Billy, Jeffy, Dolly, P.J., and their parents in February 1960, died Tuesday at his longtime home in Paradise Valley, near Phoenix. His comic strip is featured in nearly 1,500 newspapers across the country.

His son Jeff, who has been drawing Family Circus in the last few years as his father enjoyed retirement, said Mr. Keane died of congestive heart failure.

"He said, 'I love you,' and that's what I said to him, which is a great way to go out," Jeff Keane said of his last conversation with his father.

In a 1995 interview, Bil Keane said Family Circus had staying power because of its consistency and simplicity. "It's reassuring, I think, to the American public to see the same family," he said.

Although he kept the strip current with references to pop-culture movies and songs, the context of his comic was timeless. The ghost-like "Ida Know" and "Not Me" who deferred blame for household accidents were staples of the strip. The family's pets were the dogs Barfy and Sam and a cat, Kittycat.

"We are, in the comics, the last frontier of good, wholesome family humor and entertainment," Mr. Keane said. "On radio and television, magazines, and the movies, you can't tell what you're going to get. When you look at the comic page, you can usually depend on something acceptable by the entire family."

Jeff Keane shared the sentiment, saying that Family Circus had flourished through the decades because readers continue to relate to its values of family moments.

Bil Keane's friend Charles M. Schulz, the late creator of Peanuts, once said the most important thing about Family Circus was that it was funny.

Mr. Keane said the strip hit its stride with a cartoon he did in the mid-1960s.

"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."

Even with his traditional motif, Mr. Keane appreciated younger cartoonists' efforts. He listed Gary Larson's The Far Side among his favorites, and he loved it when Bill Griffith had his offbeat Zippy the Pinhead character wake up from a bump on the head thinking he was Mr. Keane's Jeffy.

Mr. Keane responded by giving Zippy an appearance in Family Circus.

Born in Philadelphia on Oct. 5, 1922, Mr. Keane taught himself to draw at Northeast Catholic High School. Around that time, young Bill dropped the second "L" off his name "just to be different."

He worked as a messenger for the Philadelphia Bulletin before serving three years in the Army, where he drew for Yank and Pacific Stars and Stripes. He met his wife, Thelma ("Thel"), while serving at a desk job in Australia. He rejoined the Bulletin in 1946 as a staff artist.

In 1953, Mr. Keane started a one-panel comic in 1953 called Channel Chuckles that lampooned the up-and-coming medium of television. He moved to Arizona in 1958 and two years later started a comic about a family much like his own. The Keanes had a daughter, Gayle, and sons Glen, Jeff, Chris, and Neal - one more son than in his cartoon family.

"I never thought about a philosophy for the strip - it developed gradually," Mr. Keane told the East Valley Tribune in 1998. "I was portraying the family through my eyes."

Thelma Keane, the inspiration for the Mommy character in the comic strip, served as her husband's business and financial manager. She died of Alzheimer's disease in 2008.