DFC #386

(a cheery warmfuzzy cartoon that you can't see)

Billy could only stare. "My god," he thought, "getting a caption here really isn't an honor."Yakko

There are few non-entertainment jobs for 3-dimensionally rendered 2-d constructs like Billy. Eventually, however, he found work tracking down leaks in Quake 2 levels.phil

The year was 1532. Before Galileo's famous De motu, a young Guillermo Keano drops different-sized cookie crumbs from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, demonstrating that the velocity of a falling object is independent of the object's mass. Moments later, he fatally tripped his nutsack, and so the discovery remained unknown for over 50 years.Heath

The Family Circus Edible Butt-Plug never sold well.Ken

Full Transactional Immunity? Is that like some kind of guarantee that you're free of STDs?Yakko

One side, makes you larger, And the other, makes you small, And the cookies Mother gives you, Makes your thing stand, hard and tall.Joe Z

So is that an inappropriate relationship, or are you just fucking her?Yakko

Every morning at dawn, Billy dresses, grabs breakfast, throws open the door to the sunrise, and reminds Bil to come in before Thel notices he's passed out on the lawn again. Crazy Climber

"I can't discuss the likely whereabouts of the missin' cookie until you grant me full transactional 'munity."El Kabong

Billy tried in vain to scream -- the cookie was made from Silent Grain.Gen. Sedgwick

The fact that his shoelace was untied started a massive "Billy is dead" rumor.Pete

See? This strip is so lame even the characters are yawning!Gen. Sedgwick

"The bitter taste of this cookie of memory brings me only sadness and pain." - Scene from Fellini's film adaption of Family CircusMonkey Punch

"All is quiet on the Western Void!"Muskrat Sam

"Billy's jaw drops slack / Crumbs tumble from his red lips / Bil and Roy at it" -- DFC Haiku #66 Crazy Climber

"Laughing's not easy/When you've stared into the void/And Bil Keane stares back." HaikuThe 13th Angel (Savagely plundering the yellow zone)

*sigh!* I love you, Alice B. Toklas...Doc Evil

Bil Keane's irreversable plunge into unhipness began with this drawing of Billy eating a vanilla Moon Pie.Heath

Screw the chiropractor -- get me a priest, and fast! I want to finish my cookie!Coalcracker (raiding the YZ)

Jeez! And you tell us not to put our fingers in our mouths!Opie

Billy was shocked to discover that, without sufficient quantities of poop to keep it wher it was, the entire neighborhood had drifted off into the void.Darth Tigger

Much like the Sleep 'n' Snore Ernie, Billy's favorite toy was the Binge 'n' Purge Cookie Monster. Namgubed the Merry Elf --

'...Exhibit 29: Child is fed a brillo pad for dinner, then forced to stare at a blank wall when he complains about the bland taste. Exhibit 30:....'--transcipt from Child Abuse case 34099, People vs. Bil & Thel Keaneagm

Well, if Jeffy's contract allows him free escorts and the company limo, I should at least be entitled to a fucking free cookie!agm

What you get when you ask Bil Keane to draw panels on hip, topical themes like Crumb's.Gen. Sedgwick

Billy's plan to escape by gnawing through the sheet rock progressed slowly.anon

My god....It's full of stars!Opie

August 12, 1974 - King Features Syndicate employs an unsuccessful attempt to spawn merchandising revenues by marketing Family Circus as a "Dennis The Menace" style strip, with Billy as the "little stinker" character. As shown here in this picture on the prototype Burger King cup, Billy's catch phrase was to be "I'm a bad widdle cookie!"Smokey

In one of Keane's sharpest criticisms of the Reagan years, the President is portrayed as drooling and staring off into space while the defense industry, symbolized inexplicably by a cookie, chews away at the fiscal hand that feeds it.Ken

Shit! Black helicopters!!NME--

Billy was so awe-struck by the featureless void that he again began to drool uncontrollably. That was when the voice of the cookie told him what he must do to the rest of his family. And the rest can be read in the papers. -- Helter Skelter 2: Innocence Lost by Jeff KeaneFeren

Fuck the cookie. This is the real question: Is little Billy staring into the Abyss, or is the Abyss staring back at him?Feren

Oh sure, it seems innocent enough. But if you rotate the panel 90 degrees, you'll see the picture was taken underwater, and Billy is floating belly-up. The evidence is right in front of you, and yet you people still can't solve the mystery of what really happened to Billy?The Dog

All right, class, note the parallel effect that Keane creates by the juxtaposition of almost-identical shapes in a mirror-like reversal. This work, dedicated to his wife Thel, very effectively conveys the bold message: "If you go off your diet, it'll come back and bite you in the ass."Desscribe

After about six of Thel's Special Cookies, Billy would just stand and talk to the wall for a few hours. -- Dolly Keane, Melon-choly MemoriesRatman

Flip her over dad!...I want puppies!Opie

"Mom, I know hiding Grandma's pills and Lysol was wrong, but how does staring at her backside for 3 hours punish me for it?"Darth Vader, lord of the Dance

"No, actually, I've got a glass of water, so fuck you and your milk!"Sean Q

After a brief feeding respite, the remora re-attaches itself to the wall.jeffrey

Wow! I didn't know there was no reality behind the cupboard door!Mr. Ben McClellan

Billy stared, mouth agape in horror, at what Santa was doing to the rest of the family. Next Christmas, he'd leave the old elf's cookies alone.JJ

Billy's use of the featureless void as a crumb catcher was a great time saver for Thelma.Peon

He'd launch into terrible rants, calling us names I wouldn't print in the Necronomicon, let alone a mainstream publication. Eventually, however, we realized that at those moments Billy was little more than a ventriloquist's dummy for dark forces beyond our ken. At those times, it was truly the cookie talking. -- Circle of Life, by Sister Delilah "Dolly" Keane.Lloyd Dobler

M.C. Escher, to make ends meet, did some "ghost-drawing" for Family Circus. Here he presents the visual conundrum: is the boy eating the cookie, or is the cookie eating the boy?Robert Hughes

Just like the caterpiller said, one side of the cookie turns everything into a featureless void. OK, let's see what the other side does.Destroyer

Cover art for The Linoleum at the Edge of the Worldjimmy

Scene from When Cookies Bite Back.Lloyd Dobler

"I can't explain it either. With a mouth as big as mine, half the fucking cookie should be gone."Lots42

Little Billyactus discovers that heavenly bodies like Earth's Moon don't taste very good on the next episode of Jim Lee's Galactus Babies.Lost in Erehwon

In another pitiful attempt to be hip and '90s, Bil tries to draw the kids with goatees.The Dog

Not wanting to share the tasty Power Pill with his mother, Jr. Pac-Man tries his hand at subterfuge.Coalcracker

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