Rating: 
Summary: Literary Equivalent of Early Elvis!!
Review: Keane, much like fellow southerner Elvis Presley, interprets his literary and illustrator predecessors in a way that re-energizes and revolutionizes the comic panel form. Whereas Presley combined the reved-up blues of Arthur Crudup with the solemn harmonies of the Jordanaires into two minute-50 second explosions of sound that challenged the staid conformity of the Eisenhower years, Keane likewise blends the relationship dramas of a Tennessee Williams with the drawn simplicity of Mark Trail's Dodd and Elrod to create poignant one-panel drawings of post modern takes on family relationships and late 20th Century suburban life. While Presley was changing the way we relate to and experience popular music, Keane was forever altering the daily comic strip. As Elvis Presley's "Sun Sessions" graces your CD case, Keane's "What Does This Say" deserves an honored location on your book case.
Rating: 
Summary: What does it *not* say?
Review: The world eagerly awaited Keane's next book, and the world was not disappointed. The exquisite craftsmanship and attention to detail, not always (we must admit) his most distingushing characteristics, cannot at any point be faulted. It may well be that the obscenity-laced tantrum against manager Mike McCarthy, which led to Keane's being thrown off the Republic of Ireland's World Cup side, was just the tonic he needed to re-focus on his life's work, the saga of the Family Circus.And what a saga it is, surpassing "Buddenbrooks", rivalling "War and Peace", leaving Dickens and Balzac bobbing in his wake. As the Millenium stumbles on towards a future too hideous to contemplate, Keane reminds us that family love, along with a bit of light-hearted dikplay, is just the tonic for jaded hearts.
Rating:
Summary: Happiness
Review: There is a certain sadness one feels in remembering happy times: turning over the last page of a good novel, and reflecting over the wonders we have just experienced, the characters who have become our friends; discovering old pictures, seeing ourselves in the halcyon throes of youth, silly smiles on our innocent faces; the plangent last notes of a Chopin nocturne, the theme, growing softer and softer now, floating across the room to rest against our face like the rhythmic breaths of a peaceful, sleeping lover. I don't know how: but Keane captures this feeling, this happy sadness - "Oh heavy lightness," as Shakespeare put it. Billy romps around the yard. He runs all over town. His parents are in love. His family is love with itself, each unto each. Can our lives ever be like this? Perhaps not, but we can watch, watch ever single day, and wrap ourself in that happy sadness. And maybe forget, if only for a little while, the way our lives really are, the way they have to be: our heavy lightness. Thanks, Bil Keane, for that, and thanks to Amazon for letting people express themselves. Thank you all.
Rating:
Summary: keane as revisionist
Review: this is keane's comic retelling of the discovery of the rosetta stone. he uses the familiar characters of billy and dolly to stand in for their historical counterparts, much as a retelling of the last supper would use willem dafoe and max von sydew as christ and judas iscariot, respectively. bil keane has finally produced his masterpiece, his gatsby if you will. although one may question the casting of PJ as the zany scientist, no one can refute keanes artistic vision. the allusions to the mythical figure IDA KNOW, who is an impish pixie, bent on mischief and playful boasting were rather welcome and serve to move the story along. the companion piece, journey to the heart of a frightmare, is a documentary done by keanes wife, ala heart of darkness. it shows a very demanding keane pushing for the best from his performers, and the scene where he badgers billy into channeling his fury, culminating in his breaking of a mirror on the set spontaneously is harrowing and uplifting at the same time. it is a shame mr keane now chooses to run a vineyard and make wine, as opposed to creating more works de art such as this. i defy anyone to forget the opening scene where billy lays in a seedy hotel and speaks in voiceover. "saigon, i am still only in saigon" as the Doors play. the ending where billy and PJ finally have at it, and PJ crumbles at billys hand intoning "the horror". kudos to keane and kudos again.
Rating:
Summary: Keane is Keen!!
Review: What does it say? The true question of Bil Keane's legacy--his magnum opus, if you will--is far more profound than this question might lead one to conclude. Like Judy Blume's Margaret, Keane tears his very heart from his chest and screams out into the potentially empty universe: "Are you there, God? It's me, Bil." One might hope to learn the secrets of life for oneself, but the truth remains that only Keane possesses these treasures. By reading "What Does This Say?", you are one step closer to discovering your own humanity, as well as deciphering the cryptic missing l in Keane's moniker. Some say that he just can't spell,others that his mother ran out of space on the birth certificate. Me? I just think that in the language of the American family, "Bil" means "God".
Rating:
Summary: Keane is Keen!!
Review: What does it say? The true question of Bil Keane's legacy--his magnum opus, if you will--is far more profound than this question might lead one to conclude. Like Judy Blume's Margaret, Keane tears his very heart from his chest and screams out into the potentially empty universe: "Are you there, God? It's me, Bil." One might hope to learn the secrets of life for oneself, but the truth remains that only Keane possesses these treasures. By reading "What Does This Say?", you are one step closer to discovering your own humanity, as well as deciphering the cryptic missing l in Keane's moniker. Some say that he just can't spell,others that his mother ran out of space on the birth certificate. Me? I just think that in the language of the American family, "Bil" means "God".
Rating:
Summary: Proustian introspection with Munch's visual conundrums
Review: Yeats once wrote, "None other knows what pleasures man/At table or in bed." Bil Keane, however, seems to have found in his latest 'Family Circus' opus a treasure-chest of pleasures for each and all of us. There are some who chafe at the seeming repetitive themes within Keane's major works; I would respectfully submit that all great stories are about life and death, love and loss, fear and triumph. If not Keane, then so go Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz and Callimachus, too, for good measure. It is not originality that spawns thought and wonderment; it is the vessels of those themes (Billy, Grandma, Barfy, PJ) that inspire and enlighten. Keane, as carrier of these vessels, reminds us of a truth so eloquently immortalized by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Some books leave us free and some books make us free." In 'What Does This Say', it is clear that the tome achieves the latter, with gusto and aplomb.
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