Why Do They Call Them Comics: The Family Circus, Hi & Lois, Henry, Dennis The Menace

Sounds like TV and the media, with their unrealistic portrayals of beauty and masculinity, have already seeped into poor Jeffy's head. He's developed an unhealthy case of "negative body image" before he's even in kindergarten!

Over at the Flagston home, an apathetic and disinterested Hi and Lois passive-agressively argue over whose turn it is to provide basic care for their own flesh and blood. Meanwhile, poor Trixie wallows in her own filth.

I'm assuming Henry is one of those legacy strips that's been taken over by a new creative team. Especially since it debuted in 1932, when creator Carl Anderson was already sixty seven years old!

Take a look at Henry here. notice his lack of hair, odd facial structure and abnormally large forearms and calves. I've always had a sneaking suspicion that Henry was really one of Popeye's many secret love children. A girl in every port and all that.

Obviously Mr. Wilson isn't a regular viewer of AMC's The Walking Dead. If he was, there's no way in hell he'd ever close his eyes while Dennis stood nearby holding a baseball bat.

Who do you think came up with the idea to get Dennis out of the house on his mother's birthday? Dennis, or his father? His horny, sex-starved, "starting to regret ever having children" father.

Why Do They Call Them Comics: The Family Circus

Uh-oh, Jeffy! You in trouble now! Looks like all those Yogacise, boot camp and Zumba classes Mommy's been taking have really paid off. She's in the best shape of her life and you're getting the ass-whuppin' of yours!

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Dayum, Jeffy! You should have thought twice about misbehaving these days, seeing as how Mommy's on the juice! Look at those guns! She's got bigger arms than most men!

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"RAAAHR! JEFFY KILL MOLK'S FAVORITE PEACE LILY! MOLK SMASH PUNY JEFFY!"

OK, that's all I got.

The Incredible Shrinking News

 

Take a look at yesterday's Family Circus comic. Notice anything unusual about it? Besides the fact that for once in its life it's actually kind of funny?

No, it's not Daddy's look of horrified realization at the fact that his own son considers him hopelessly square. Nor is it Little Billy's patented Alex P. Keaton brand sweater set.

It's the newspaper Daddy's reading. Look at it! Just look at the size of that thing! It's easily three times the width of Daddy's head!

I don't know how it is elsewhere in our great Republic, but here in Evansville our newspaper hasn't looked like that for a long time. Ours is positively diminutive. Fun-sized, even. 

It all started back around 2006 or so. Back then we had a normal-sized paper, around 18" x 24" or so. As readership and ad revenue began decreasing, management decided to save money on printing costs by steadily whittling down the size of the newspaper.   

By the time I left my job at the paper... er, I mean shortly after management eliminated the entire graphic design staff, the dimensions of the newspaper were down to a ridiculous looking Hobbit-sized 10.5" x 22". No, that's not a typo-- it's barely 10" wide. Not a whole lot bigger than a comic book!

Note that the price didn't decrease along with the size. Instead it went from the fifty cents it cost when I worked there to the whopping one dollar it costs now. Less for more!

So what's up with that impressively wide anachronistic Family Circus newspaper? At first I thought maybe this was a recycled strip from the 1970s, but a quick look at the signature shows that it's from Jeff Keane, the current writer and artist. So it was drawn recently. 

I can only think of three reasons why Daddy's newspaper is so wide. A: Mommy found a yellowed, vintage newspaper lining a drawer and set it next to the trash and Daddy's so addled with worry about his job that he picked it up and started reading it, not noticing it was thirty years old. B: The newspapers in Pleasanton or Blandville or wherever the hell Family Circus takes place still have a robust readership and haven't yet been forced to shrink, or C: Despite the fact that Jeff Keane has his own daily comic strip, he hasn't seen an actual newspaper for going on ten years now.

Family Circumspect

Take a look at this recent Family Circus comic. When I was a kid and I'd see these drawings I really did think that Bil Keane's son Billy actually filled in and drew his comic for a week. 

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Lie #1: Bil Keane allegedly based the strip on the antics of his family, but he never had a son named Billy. He did have a son named Jeff who was the inspiration for the Jeffy character in the comic. The Mommy character was based on Keane's real-life wife Thel. 

Lie #2: Even if there was a little Billy, the strip started in 1960 so he'd be close to 60 by now, and would hopefully be able to draw a little better than this.

Lie #3: Bil Keane died in 2011. His son Jeff is now writing and drawing the strip.

As I said, this entire scenario is nothing but a filthy pack of lies!