The Accessible Family Circus

As they entered adolescence, many of the kid's problems could be traced back to that moment, when the muffled calmness of a snowy winter night was broken by the sound of daddy beating Barfy with a shovel.

For those in need of a history lesson, the 1960's were when "Compart Cars" first came into fashion. Sadly, the next day Bil Keane was kicked in the head by a mule and now writes every strip as if it were March 5th, 1960.

It's fascinating that Dolly's current level of funny ugliness is an improvement over her original, more depressing level of ugliness.

Hmm...This one isn't too bad either. What's going on here? Is Family Circus the Rolling Stones of the comic world? Is Early Bil Keane actually good? When I was a kid and The Stones were doing their Steel Wheels tour, all I thought was "These dudes are old and this sucks. When is the new GNR coming out?", and so I continued to think until I went back and listened to old stuff and found out how great they were. To be fair, The Stones went from "Super Cool" to "Past Their Prime", while Bil Keane went from "Passably Decent" to "A Kick in the Nuts to Everyone Who Works for a Living", so take that for what you will.

This is the first time Bil lets us know what selfish dicks the children are. Three kids piled on a runner sled on their dad's ribcage? A saucer sled, sure, but a runner sled has the entire load resting on 2 pieces of metal, and Dolly's heft is too much for any man to bear. That pained look on his face is due to a punctured lung.

This is truly historic. The first Family Circus. Interestingly, it's probably the best one I've ever seen. I'm not left wondering what's supposed to be "funny", and it doesn't beat me over the head with a stupid pun or have Dolly acting like a raving bitch. Well done, Keane. Too bad you hit your peak on the first day. Way to pace yourself.