That sensation - the fleshing out of these comical men who survived the '50s "gray flannel suit" era with humor intact - ripples through most every page of "Cartoon County," author and Vanity Fair editor at large Cullen Murphy's rich remembrances of his brush-wielding father and, as the subtitle says, "his friends in the golden age of make-believe." They may have been buttoned down in black tie on that awards night, but these aging gentlemen ruthlessly traded ironic observations and no-holds-barred art deconstructions that were more subversive than anything the funny pages would have allowed. What listening to Keane that evening did, really, was humanize the men - yes, to echo Golden Globes presenter Natalie Portman, it was nearly "all male" - behind the newspaper comic strips that predate the first moon landing. The event was a National Cartoonist Society awards dinner, and the stately Keane's relatively acidic wit while emcee made me re-evaluate what fizzing truth might lie buried deep in his seemingly staid "Family Circus." I remember it vividly, the first time I heard Bil Keane, the creator of "Family Circus," that epitome of the midcentury suburban gag comic, crack an insult joke that snapped with honest bite.
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