William Aloysius "Bil" Keane was an American cartoonist most notable for his work on the newspaper comic The Family Circus.
18 Facts About Bil Keane
2.
Bil Keane was born in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania neighborhood of Crescentville, and attended parochial school at St William Parish and Northeast Catholic High School.
3.
Bil Keane served in the US Army from 1942 to 1945, drawing for Yank and creating the "At Ease with the Japanese" feature for the Pacific edition of Stars and Stripes.
4.
Bil Keane worked for the Philadelphia Bulletin as a staff artist from 1946 to 1959, where he launched his first regular comic strip Silly Philly.
5.
Bil Keane's first syndicated strip, Channel Chuckles, a series of jokes related to television, premiered in 1954 and ran until 1977.
6.
In 1959, the Bil Keane family moved to Paradise Valley, Arizona.
7.
Bil Keane was the president of the National Cartoonists Society from 1981 to 1983 and was the emcee of the Society's annual awards banquet for 16 years.
8.
From 1981 to 1983, Bil Keane published the gag strip Eggheads in collaboration with his son Jeff, who now draws and writes The Family Circus and continues the strip with his own insight and humor.
9.
Bil Keane died on November 8,2011, at his home in Paradise Valley, Arizona, at age 89.
10.
Bil Keane was buried, alongside his wife, in the Holy Redeemer Cemetery of Phoenix, Arizona.
11.
Bil Keane was a four-time recipient of the National Cartoonists Society's Award for Best Syndicated Panel, winning in 1967,1971,1973 and 1974.
12.
In 1982, Bil Keane was named the Society's Cartoonist of the Year and received its top honor, the Reuben Award.
13.
Bil Keane received the Elzie Segar Award in 1982 for his unique contribution to the cartooning profession.
14.
Bil Keane was honored with the Silver T-Square Award from the National Cartoonist Society in 2002 for "outstanding dedication" to the Society and the cartooning profession.
15.
In 2008, Bil Keane was honored with the Sergio Award from the Comic Art Professional Society.
16.
Bil Keane had a close friendship with humorist and newspaper columnist Erma Bombeck.
17.
Pastis has notably parodied The Family Circus in his own strip a number of times, and Bil Keane wrote a satirical "attack" on these jokes as a foreword for Pastis' Pearls collection Macho Macho Animals.
18.
Bil Keane switched with Scott Adams of Dilbert in the 1997 comic strip switcheroo.