'The Family Circus'

[flapdoodle64]

The death of cartoonist Bil Keane brings to mind a recurrent observation...

The view of the metaphyscial universe presented in this comic strip is distinctly infantile and simplistic.  Which is understandable, considering that a large portion of his audience was children. 

Creepy dead Grandpa stands out as a distinct feature. 

What's intersting is that the strip is one of the most widely syndicated and, ostensibly, popular, comic strips in the world.   

http://www.anniemayhem.com/blog%20pics/Easter2005Family%20Circus.jpg

I think this fact, by itself, is a commentary on the state of religious thought in America.

[screwtape]

C'thulhu Family Circus was better.  Most links to it on the internet now lead to 404s.  How appropriate.

[RaymondKHessel]

Family circus can suck a dick! That's right! I said it!

Most milquetoast, vanilla, whitebread, balless, unfunny, braindead, mouth-breathing, lowest-common-denominator pandering, football-shaped-head-having, shamelessly MILF agrandizing, infantile-assed, limp-wristed follow-the-footsteps-straight-into-the-mouth-of-mediocrity endorsing pieces of over-fluffed theocratic s**t in the history of Ever.

f**k JEFFY. That's right, f**k that dumb little bastard right in his nostrils!!! 

All that fucking ink stain ever did is take up valuable paper space that would have been infinitely better occupied by a 2nd Calvin & Hobbes. 

[Hatter23]

Todd Gaines: There you are, enjoying your comics, when all of a sudden there's the Family Circus just waiting to suck, and ruin your whole experience.

[jaimehlers]

Eh, I never minded reading Family Circus.  Still don't.

[fungusdrool]

Family circus can suck a dick! That's right! I said it!

Most milquetoast, vanilla, whitebread, balless, unfunny, braindead, mouth-breathing, lowest-common-denominator pandering, football-shaped-head-having, shamelessly MILF agrandizing, infantile-assed, limp-wristed follow-the-footsteps-straight-into-the-mouth-of-mediocrity endorsing pieces of over-fluffed theocratic s**t in the history of Ever.

f**k JEFFY. That's right, f**k that dumb little bastard right in his nostrils!!! 

All that fucking ink stain ever did is take up valuable paper space that would have been infinitely better occupied by a 2nd Calvin & Hobbes.

Yeah, but how do you really feel?

Seriously, though, that's a funny rant.  Some classic posts today, my man.

[flapdoodle64]

It would be intersting to see if the any of the city newspapers that run Family Circus would be willing to run a heart-warming, family-friendly comic that gently informed the audience that religion is just imaginary bullshit and has historically been used by the worst tyrants to unleash the worst terrors upon the world. 

[RaymondKHessel]

Family circus can suck a dick! That's right! I said it!

Most milquetoast, vanilla, whitebread, balless, unfunny, braindead, mouth-breathing, lowest-common-denominator pandering, football-shaped-head-having, shamelessly MILF agrandizing, infantile-assed, limp-wristed follow-the-footsteps-straight-into-the-mouth-of-mediocrity endorsing pieces of over-fluffed theocratic s**t in the history of Ever.

f**k JEFFY. That's right, f**k that dumb little bastard right in his nostrils!!! 

All that fucking ink stain ever did is take up valuable paper space that would have been infinitely better occupied by a 2nd Calvin & Hobbes.

Yeah, but how do you really feel?

Seriously, though, that's a funny rant.  Some classic posts today, my man.

<bows> Ah thank you, sir.

That was from the heart, ya feel me? Family Circus: Not a fan. 

Eh, I never minded reading Family Circus.  Still don't.

Hmmm... Might you also be the type of fellow who stops on road trips to see such thrilling landmarks as Minnesota's Biggest Ball of Yarn or the St. Louis Potato Museum? 

Or are you just a rebel? That's it, isn't it? Just HAVE to be different, don't ya? Yeeeeeah, I know your type. Just know I've got my eye on you, Brando. So stay away from the liquor cabinet! I mark the bottles so I know *EXACTLY* how much is in them! 

[jaimehlers]

Hmmm... Might you also be the type of fellow who stops on road trips to see such thrilling landmarks as Minnesota's Biggest Ball of Yarn or the St. Louis Potato Museum? 

Or are you just a rebel? That's it, isn't it? Just HAVE to be different, don't ya? Yeeeeeah, I know your type. Just know I've got my eye on you, Brando. So stay away from the liquor cabinet! I mark the bottles so I know *EXACTLY* how much is in them! 

If I'm gonna read the comic pages, I read all of the comics.

And you're in luck, I don't drink.

[screwtape]

If I'm gonna read the comic pages, I read all of the comics.

screw that.  most comics suck anymore.  funky winkerbean?  how the funk did that even get into the newspapers?  zitts blows because the kid is a total jackhole.  blondie is only readable because blondie is a hot piece of ass[1].  Lockhorns are okay, but I find a couple who hates each other and stayed together for 30 years to be depressing.  the rest, feh.

Calvin and Hobbes was the last great comic strip.  God bless Bill Watterson.

1.	she's a former stripper, did you know that?

[velkyn]

I always cringed at Family Circus.  It was so saccharine.

I think, though, that I hate Peanuts the worst for supposedly Christian comics.  Nasty little kids giving each other grief.  Gee, how "funny".

For ones I like, 9 Chickweed Lane http://www.gocomics.com/9chickweedlane , Rose is Rose http://www.gocomics.com/roseisrose?ref=comics  and sometimes Pearls Before Swine http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine?ref=comics . 

oh Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County, where art thou? 

[jynnan tonnix]

I was going to comment on Peanuts earlier, but got sidetracked and didn't get around to it.
Granted, it's been an important part of the evolution of comics and an institution in its own right, but why are all these newspapers continuing to run reprints all these years after Charles Schultz's death, and in the foremost leading spot on the comic page? I liked it well enough back in maybe the 70's, but it succumbed to the same fate as countless other comics which have run too long and became rote and unfunny long before Schultz actually died.

I used to enjoy the comic page and read most of them with the exception of a couple of the soap-opera ones, but these days there are hardly any which are worth the time it takes to read them, and even those rarely manage to raise a chuckle out of me.

[screwtape]

I saw an old Peanuts not too long ago. Linus was talking to Charlie Brown and said he had to write a report about something.  He had cited all these biblical passages as his references.  I thought it was really weird for him to be so religious.  I took it to mean that Schultz was pushing xianity on his readers. 

But maybe not.  Linus is the one who also has unswerving faith in the Great Pumpkin.  Maybe Schultz was using Linus to link the two ideas - one obviously ridiculous and the other taken for granted by the mainstream - making a commentary about the absurdity of faith and religion?

[Mr. Blackwell]

It would be intersting to see if the any of the city newspapers that run Family Circus would be willing to run a heart-warming, family-friendly comic that gently informed the audience that religion is just imaginary bullshit and has historically been used by the worst tyrants to unleash the worst terrors upon the world.

Well, every year I look forward to watching "The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown". I love how Lucy gets so pissed about missing out on all that candy. Although it doesn't really address the second part about tyrants. meh.

Edit: I apologize for being redundant, I didn't notice Screwtape's post before I started mine.

[Onesimus]

Schulz, like many people, went through some phases.  Early on he fell in with some street-preaching types and slid gracefully into mainstream religion, but by the end of his life he had become disillusioned with most of his beliefs and declined to speak at length about them.  Yes, I identify.  Hoo boy, do I identify.

[Xero-Kill]

Mother Goose and Grimm... where is the love? 

[superfly]

Fvck Family Circus (xcept the mom had a hot cartoon body kinda like The Dick Van Dyke Show era Mary Tyler Moore)
Fvck Ziggy
Fvck Kathy

Johnny Ryan, Ivan Brunetti, R. Crumb...now that's funny.

as for Peanuts...even though the xtian message was there occasionally (the charlie brown xmas) i still dug it. Schultz was a sad, twisted guy from what i've read. i have his bio here, i should read it.

[flapdoodle64]

There are all these Famlily Circus cartoons with Dead Grampa looking down from heaven watching the kids. 

So, when Little Billy goes through puberty and steals a skin magazine, I guess Dead Grampa will be up there in heaven watching Little Billy beat off? 

Well, I guess since grampa is dead, it's not illegal, but still, for an adult to watch a child masturbate is just sick. 

[screwtape]

Well, I guess since grampa is dead, it's not illegal, but still, for an adult to watch a child masturbate is just sick.

?  You are the one who thought of it.  It is not as if that was ever a Family Circus cartoon.  It is a creation of your mind.  So I think that makes you the sicko.

[flapdoodle64]

You can go ahead and call me a sicko, but I am not the one covertly spying on children. 

Nor I am I the cartoonist who draws a comic strip about a ghostly voyeuristic old man.

If you found out about an old man spying on your kid, would you not think that's kind of sick?

I think this is the first time a moderator on this forum has called me names.  Who moderates the moderators?

Going back to the topic of other theistic funnies:

The 'Rose is Rose' strip frequently shows a 'guardian angel' for a kid character.  The cartoonist did a bunch of strips in the 1990's about the angel being prohibited from the kid's school, but that bit of political nonsense seems to have been dropped.  (How exactly can public schools keep out an ominipotent god or one of god's angels anyway?  Silly!)

The last decade or so of 'BC' by Johnny Hart had a lot of fundamentalist religious BS.  Too bad, because the original BC was funny and subversive. 

As previously mentioned, Peanuts featured a religious element, but based on the whole Great Pumpkin thing, it would seem Schulz's views on religion were ambivalent.

[nogodsforme]

Doonesbury always rocks. I can't stand Garfield, but Mark Trail is the bomb.

[velkyn]

ah, not Prince Valiant and those lovely pageboy haircuts 

[screwtape]

You can go ahead and call me a sicko, but I am not the one covertly spying on children. 

Nor I am I the cartoonist who draws a comic strip about a ghostly voyeuristic old man.

If you found out about an old man spying on your kid, would you not think that's kind of sick?

I think this is the first time a moderator on this forum has called me names.  Who moderates the moderators?

So, let me get this straight. 

1. You came up with some fantasy about the grandfather in Family Circus who died, went to heaven and watches over his family.  You imagined him watching his teen grandson masturbating.

2. You said that was sick

3. I pointed out that little scenario came from your mind, not the cartoonist's, so if it is sick, it is your sickness.

4. Your response was to:
  a. write a snotty incoherent reply, but you
  b. give me bad Karma
  c. and then reported the my post for moderation.

Correct so far?

[flapdoodle64]

Was my post sick? Perhaps. But consider the context of this board, where we blaspheme on a daily basis.  And I am still not the person who created an imaginary voyeuristic grandfather and wrote him into a children's comic strip. 

You called me sicko.  You made a personal insult. 

That behavior is not too egregious for a poster, but if you are a moderator they ought to replace you. 

You'll note that even though you characterize my post as snotty and incoherent, I still haven't stooped to personal insults. 

Is this how moderators are picked for this board, prowess at internet bullying?  Nice.

[Gnu Ordure]

Velkyn:

I think, though, that I hate Peanuts the worst for supposedly Christian comics.  Nasty little kids giving each other grief.  Gee, how "funny".

Nooo!!

A few weks ago I found about 35 of the Peanuts books I collected as a kid. From the age of six or seven, I was obsessed with it. Being a Brit, I didn't understand a lot of the references (baseball? summer camp? halloween? wtf?), but I got their world.

And following it through the sixties, I became convinced it was drug-influenced and counter-cultural, as Snoopy's adventures became more and more surreal (the Red Baron etc).

I certainly never read it a "Christian" comic. And yes, I saw the Great Pumpkin as a satire on organized religion. Which may be as Schulz intended, as he gradually lost his faith.

Gnu.

PS I read all 35 books again! Still funny.

[Historicity]

seven, I was obsessed with it. Being a Brit, I didn't understand a lot of the references (baseball? summer camp? halloween? wtf?), but I got their world.

Baseball = Mostly London Rounders from the 1830 British book on it that appeared in a pirated American version in 1838 with the same illustrations redrawn.

Summer camp = Invented by Lord Baden Powell.

Halloween  =  Irish & German.  And you can't get more American than a mix like that.

[jaimehlers]

Was my post sick? Perhaps. But consider the context of this board, where we blaspheme on a daily basis.  And I am still not the person who created an imaginary voyeuristic grandfather and wrote him into a children's comic strip. 

You called me sicko.  You made a personal insult. 

That behavior is not too egregious for a poster, but if you are a moderator they ought to replace you. 

You'll note that even though you characterize my post as snotty and incoherent, I still haven't stooped to personal insults. 

Is this how moderators are picked for this board, prowess at internet bullying?  Nice.

Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.

If you felt he was out of line with his comment, you could have just reported it and left it at that.  Instead, you've written two additional comments about it, not to mention giving him bad karma on top of all that.  And now you're casting aspersions on the moderators as a whole.  Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your neighbor.

[pingnak]

C'thulhu Family Circus was better.  Most links to it on the internet now lead to 404s.  How appropriate.

Google Image Search is your friend.
http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&q=cthulhu+family+circus

Or pathway to the nightmare existence that awareness of the elder things brings. 

There's also a Cthulhu Dr. Seuss.
http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&q=cthulhu+dr+seuss

[pingnak]

Calvin & Hobbes has been dead a long time, but it loops forever over here...
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/

And Dilbert will never end.  Ever.  Scott Adams will sell out to keep it going.  I have faith in him!
http://dilbert.com/fast/

And XKCD... well, you like it or you don't get it.
http://xkcd.com/