Bil Keane, who died yesterday at the age of 89, created the comic strip Family Circus and produced it for more than a half a century. He was an enormously nice, witty man…and funny. Family Circus was a pretty successful enterprise but a lot of folks who knew Bil said if it had been as funny as Bil was in person, it would have been the most popular comic ever. As it was, it was always good for a smile and a chuckle…and sometimes a nod of recognition for some striking capture of human foible.
I only knew Bil from a few cartoonist gatherings. He was the acknowledged master at hosting and giving hilarious speeches and at a National Cartoonists Society banquet one year, I gave him a joke that he used. It felt exactly the same as when I once gave George Burns a joke that he used on Johnny Carson's show. I mean that as a compliment of Bil, not of myself. In front of a hall of his peers, he was as big a comedy star as Burns or Jack Benny or any of them…and just as beloved.