Most everyone is familiar with Bil Keane’s daily comic which can be found in most widely published newspapers in North America. Family Circus has been around for as long as I can remember and it’s always been one of the comics that you either skip, or read and then become angry because hacks that aren’t funny are for writing for the funny pages and are making more money than you are (see Marmaduke, Cathy, and Garfield for more examples — Marmaduke thinks he’s people, Cathy fights that urge to eat that chocolate cake and Garfield, well Garfield sold out a long long time ago — there, I just saved you 15 seconds off of your daily routine for the rest of your life).
This is a political blog and now it has a commentary on a daily comic. One might even suspect an analysis of Doonesbury. But not today.
Ha, ha. Uh, what?
For a while I didn’t even know what to say. I saw this one on Tuesday; I ripped it out of the newspaper and put it aside until I could fully recover from the shock. Well, not really… I’ve just been busy.
A common past-time where I work is to save Family Circus comics and ‘remix’ them; we recaption them towards the offensive and absurd. Bil Keane’s March 8th creation did it all on its own.
I guess Billy and his friends, moved by current world events, decided to spice up the classic game of cops and robbers simulate the efforts to secure Iraq from those whom, more often than naught, decapitate their hostages.
Awkward laughter? Perhaps.
Unintended absurdity? Yes.
PS – For a truly imaginative masterpiece of a daily comic strip, check out Calvin and Hobbes