Keane To Pun

Monday Cartoon Day.

Although I have shown quite a bit of cartoons by Bil Keane, I have stayed away from his most famous series, The Family Circus. The reason for that is I am not really a fan, and I find all his other work about twice as funny. Wth one exception: as a part of The Family Circus Sunday strip Keane often included a small section of puns, called Sideshow. These puns weresend in by reader and illustrated by Keane. There were two kinds: puns where the pun was in the way a word was written (a girl waering an earring shaped like a tennis racket with the words 'racket-earring' underneath) and the ones where the word is written normally, but the illustration fits the other meaning). I like the second type the best, so I have gather some of those to show to you here.

I have added a couple more since last week, by the way.

Are We There Yet?

Monday Cartoon Day.

In the introduction if IDW's new collection of The Family Circus (part of their impressive Library of American comics) Chistopher Keane reveals that before The Family Circus his father drew a short-lived feature called Spot News. A small daily gag in a circle, to be run anywhere in the paper as a topical gag. Well, at least it was supposed to be sort of topical, but as it was drawn weeks beforehand, that proved to be a bit difficult. The result was less than satisfying to say the least. Keane was a pretty good cartoonist, but had yet to find his niche.