'Family' affair: Cartoonist Jeff Keane continues dad's legacy with 'The Family Circus'

It makes sense that Jeff Keane would one day take over “The Family Circus” from his father Bil.

After all, he’s one of the characters.

Jeff Keane is the inspiration for Jeffy. All of the child characters are modeled after Bil Keane’s own children, in fact. But Jeff is the only one with the same name.

“Jeffy, he was always the hero,” Jeff Keane said, laughing. “As far as I was concerned he was the savior of the strip.”

So, in a way, was the real-life Jeff. He began working on the strip part-time with his father in the 1980s, after graduating from the University of Southern California, and took over after Bil’s death in 2011.

It was, again, a natural progression.

The Keane kids grew up reading comics, of course, and not just their father’s.

“I can't remember specifically what cartoons were my favorites on the comics page at the time,” Keane said. “I read all sorts of cartoons, and we read comic books and we read the old Mad Magazine. We read all the various cartoons.”

It sounds as if they had a little help.

“We were reading the Sunday papers all the time,” Keane said. “And somehow they always managed to be open to the comics page whenever we walked out into the kitchen. I think that was my dad’s little hint to read them.”

Jeff Keane was aware of his exalted status as a cartoon character.

“I guess I really kind of knew it all along,” he said. “Although I wasn't really aware of what that meant.”

He would learn. And as he got older it would sometimes become awkward.

“It wasn't the best thing in high school,” he said, “to be having cartoons about wetting the bed and trying to get a date.”

Bil Keane started “The Family Circus” in 1960. Unabashedly wholesome, with an emphasis on family, it charted a different course than many comics, then and now.

“That was his genius, to create something that is so relatable for families and not worry about having to do a joke, so to speak,” Keane said of his father. “He created something that has real heart to it. And so I'm happy to continue on with that.”

Keane said his mother “was always the heart of ‘The Family Circus.’ I think she gave him the observation that he didn't necessarily have to do a cartoon that had a laugh all the time, which is pretty much what comics were at that period, unless they were story strips or whatever.

“But he started that, that cartoons can have a tug at the heart or a lump in the throat, and people can relate to that. So I think that's why it became successful.”

While Jeff Keane is obviously happy to follow in his father’s footsteps, that wasn’t his original plan. He studied theater at USC, and planned on becoming an actor. Like most people, he spent time auditioning and looking for parts.

“He asked if I wanted to help maybe answer mail, do some ancillary things, put together books,” Keane said of his father. “And sort of free my time so I could do auditions, because I could work at home and do that stuff.”

Keane gradually started doing more work on “The Family Circus.”

“I was doing penciling, and then I started to color the cartoons,” he said. “I would watercolor for certain products or whatever. And eventually I was doing everything, and over time learning to draw the characters. I didn't really have any particular style to begin with. So I just learned from him what the characters should look like.”

The Keanes had a unique creative process.

“I would send him my pencil drawings,” Keane said, “and then he would put a piece of paper over it and overlay that and redraw it, and show where, you know, the arm should be a little shorter here, or this perspective doesn't look quite right. And then he'd send it back to me. So he was critical in what it should look like. But he wasn't critical in his criticism.”

“The Family Circus” has been Jeff Keane’s strip for more than a decade now. Although that’s not how he sees it.

“Oh, I always think of it as his cartoon,” he said of his father. “I don't have a problem with doing the cartoon. It’s our family, is really what it is when I’m doing the cartoon. I think of it as this is my mom, this is my dad, this was me, my brothers, my sister.

“And it brings me great memories when I'm doing that. I’m nothing but proud of the opportunity to continue something that he created that I really think is a special cartoon in the newspaper. I think it has a unique place on the comics page.”

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X, formerly known as Twitter: @goodyk.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Cartoonist Jeff Keane continues dad's legacy with 'The Family Circus'