Subtle Politics in the Family Circus?
Bil Keane is about the most stable, predictable, and let’s face it, BORING comic strip writers out there, which is why it’s always fun to deface the prosaic Family Circus with captions referencing anal sex, alcoholism, and horrifying gratuitous violence.
What’s going on in Saturday’s strip? I think the first question is who wrote it?
I am going to go out on a limb here and identify this as a Bil: Jeff’s work is usually marked by a slick pun (as opposed to the elder Keane’s obsession with “pasketti and meatbulbs”) and a word balloon inside the boundaries of the strip itself. Furthermore, the weird sense of perspective indicates that this is a Bil.
Under the assumption that this is the work of the elder Keane, let’s take a look at the joke, which is pretty blase, even by FC standards: the kids have come back for trick-or-treats because the neighbor wasn’t home. Fine, hahaha greedy children. But this misses the real chuckle, and that is that Dolly is wearing a Sarah Palin costume. It’s unmistakable: the tied up hair, the rectangular glasses, and the schoolgirl costume.
What is Keane trying to say? It’s well-known that Keane is a devout Catholic, and almost certainly pro-life… but Bil Keane is also a product of a much more sober generation: he fought in World War II and prospered during the post-war era, which led to the American middle class. To be honest, I don’t know WHAT Keane thinks of Sarah Palin, but I can say one thing: portraying her as a Halloween costume doesn’t speak particularly highly of the woman
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:55 am
Given the context (Batman, Iron Man, …Sarah Palin?) he might also be calling her a superhero.