Mon, November 13, 2006

Dad and I love to read "Family Circus" every day, just so we can stage apoplectic rants about how terrible it is within earshot of my mother, who hates the strip even more than we do and wants nothing to do with it. We're no Comics Curmudgeon, but we do our best.

We'll start deconstructing a punch line like, "I hope that plane doesn't crash into the moon!" for all the reasons it's unfunny and stupid. (How does Dolly navigate through life if her concept of depth perception is really that bad?) At first Mom won't know what we're talking about, but then it'll dawn on her and she'll start yelling at us for forcing her to know what the cartoon was about even though she willfully avoids it. It's a little tradition. There's a fine line between "tradition" and "running a joke into the ground." In my family, we take great pride in running that fine line into the ground.

Anyway, I think a cartoon from last week sets a world record:

Let's leave aside the blatant product placement. This is not only a preposterously lame, unfunny joke – it's a lame, unfunny joke started by Paris Hilton! The Keanes can't mine enough non-humor from the children's homophone-based misunderstandings and Billy's meandering neighborhood tours, they've got to start ripping off material from mentally challenged, stick-thin faux celebrities?

I like one thing about it, though. There's an in-joke to the fans of the once-great, now ceased-and-desisted Dysfunctional Family Circus, whose caption contest would often berate Keane's limited drawing talents, particularly his tendency to illustrate a wall as just a line along the floor. For an example of this unspeakably bland style, look no further than this very comic, which illustrates the storefront as exactly the massive, featureless, sun-blocking obelisk your hippie friends envision when they're storming City Hall to block the construction of yet another superstore in their sleepy burg.

Well played, Keanes. You've finally moved above Cathy Guisewhite on my list of Cartoonists to Shoot, Execution-Style in the Back of the Head.