Lafayette Hill, Pa.: Do you believe that it is appropriate to include so many cartoons with explicitly Christian themes in a comic strip primarily aimed at pre-schoolers? Do you believe that it is proper to proselytize through comic strips?
Bil Keane: My only reason for using the religious or spiritual themes in the "Family Circus," is to show what our family was like when I was growing up and how religion was a part of the family life of Bil and Thel Keane. When I show Granddad in heaven sitting on a cloud enjoying his grandchildren on earth, coming down occasionally to comfort his widow, Granma, I'm drawing my dad, Al Keane, who died in 1956, four years before I started the feature. Grandma was my mother, who is now since gone, but who will live on as the Grandma in the "Family Circus." I don't believe that a comic should concentrate on any particular religion and have never indicated what sect the members of the "Family Circus" belong to. The cartoons that I occasionally do with a spiritual theme draw more positive mail than any others. When I first started mentioning God in the cartoon, I received critical mail from readers who said
"Drunk at the matinee" is a collection of candid poetry about stupid shit that we all experience from day to day.
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