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Family Circus, 3/14/05

I’ll make a deal with those people who think that the Ten Commandments should be displayed in front of courthouses and other government buildings in the United States: I’ll go along with the idea, as long as we can alter the existing ten, and add new ones, based on the wacky utterances of cartoon characters. Sound fair? Here’s some suggestions:

The third commandment: “Observe the sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Also, the LORD hateth Mondays; so shall you hate them as well.”

The sixth commandment: “Neither shall you commit adultery, unless advised to do so by Mary Worth.”

The eleventh commandment: “If thy husband, or thy girl-child, or thy coworker or boss shall engage you in banter, thou shalt show your appreciation for the verbal byplay with a facial expression that is ‘sly.'”

The seventeenth commandment: “Shun thee the harlot; for she is a gig, she is roadside. She shall be nothing more to thee than a sexual playtoy, though thou probably should not mention that to thy dentist. Once she has journeyed to that place, there is no way for her to return.”

The twenty-third commandment: “More zippers, mule!”

Incidentally, what exactly is going on in this panel? Is dad quizzing Dolly on the Ten Commandments? Is he going to get all “false witness” on her ass the next time “Not Me” shows up?

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Family Circus, 2/9/05

Mommy and Daddy are considering these same options for when Grandma and Grandpa finally kick the bucket. Flushing: somewhat less dignified, but significantly cheaper.

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Family Circus, 1/20/05

Normally, I try to avoid directly discussing the writers and artists of comics in this blog, on the logic that they’re real people whose feelings would be hurt after being on the receiving end of cruel mockery from yours truly. Today, however, I’m making an exception on the part of Bil and Jeff Keane, since I figure that they have the love of millions of children and parents around the world, along with their enormous piles of money, to emotionally sustain them. Anyway, it’s fairly well known that the Family Circus family is not-so-loosely based on the family of artist Bil Keane. Now that Bil’s son Jeff, who apparently has enough clout to not be known professionally as “Jeffy,” has taken over most of the creative duties, I’ve been keenly interested in how young Jeffy is treated in the strip. And, as near as I can tell, he is almost always treated badly. If Jeffy is ever featured in the daily panel, he’s almost always being yelled at (as he is here), being shot at, saying something stupid, or otherwise being crapped on. He’s not the oldest, he’s not the baby, he’s not the girl: he’s just Jeffy, and he has a lot of anger to work out. One wonders if he goes out of the way to make the art as crude and talentless as possible (and the jokes as stupid as possible) when “Billy” takes over in a pathetic attempt to get back at his parent-favored older brother.