page_title: Bil Keane
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Bil Keane / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: The house of the cartoonist Bil Keane, creator of the cartoon "Family Circus", and Thel Keane, his wife, built in 1957 and located at 5815 E. Joshua Tree Ln. in Paradise Valley, Arizona.
context_page_description: William Aloysius Keane, better known as Bil Keane, was an American cartoonist most notable for his work on the newspaper comic The Family Circus. It began in 1960 and continues in syndication, drawn by his son Jeff Keane.
context_section_description: Keane served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945, drawing for Yank and creating the "At Ease with the Japanese" feature for the Pacific edition of Stars and Stripes.
  Keane worked for the Philadelphia Bulletin as a staff artist from 1946 to 1959, where he launched his first regular comic strip Silly Philly. His first syndicated strip, Channel Chuckles, a series of jokes related to television, premiered in 1954 and ran until 1977.  In 1959, the Keane family moved to Paradise Valley, Arizona. Keane's daily newspaper panel The Family Circus premiered on February 29, 1960. Keane was the president of the National Cartoonists Society from 1981 to 1983 and was the emcee of the Society's annual awards banquet for 16 years.
  From 1981 to 1983, Keane published the gag strip Eggheads in collaboration with his son Jeff, who now draws and writes The Family Circus and continues the strip with his own insight and humor. Like his father, Jeff Keane has been president of the National Cartoonists Society (NCS), serving two consecutive terms (four years).  The NCS is the organizing body that honors cartoonists with the Reuben Awards.
  Bil Keane died on November 8, 2011, at his home in Paradise Valley, Arizona (near Phoenix), at age 89.  The cause of death was given as congestive heart failure. He was buried, alongside his wife, in the Holy Redeemer Cemetery of Phoenix, Arizona.
caption: The house of Bil Keane and Thel Keane located at 5815 E. Joshua Tree Ln. in Paradise Valley, Az.
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