GAG RECAP Editor Bill Keough RIP

Veteran newsman William T. Keough passed away at the age of 74 on Friday, December 17, 2010. The cause was complications of melanoma. He lived in Chalfont, PA.

Bill was the most recent editor of the GAG RECAP trade journal, a professional insider prozine aimed exclusively at gag cartoonists. He edited a number of other journals, including CARTOON OPPORTUNITIES.

GAG RECAP, which has traded hands several times since its inception over 50 years ago, lists gag cartoon markets and is aimed at the working freelance gag cartoonist. The publication, which was anywhere from 8 to 12 pages a month, staple-bound, on letter-size paper, detailed the contact information for each market, along with text descriptions of cartoons published.

The Philadelphia Daily News has an obituary here by John F. Morrison. An excerpt follows:

Bill Keough was born in Boston and grew up in Milton, Mass., where he went to high school. He graduated from Michigan State University School of Journalism in 1958.

He started his newspaper career on a paper in Wapakopneta, Ohio, then worked for the Lima News in Lima, Ohio, before moving East and getting a job on the Long Island Press.

He went from there to United Press International in the Newark, N.J., office, where he covered the riots.

He worked part-time on the copy desk of the Daily News.

... Bill joined the Bulletin in 1970 as a rewriteman and later started a column, "Bill Keough's City Beat."

"He loved the neighborhoods," his wife said. "He had a strong affinity for neighborhood projects and places. He helped raise money for sick kids. He would put their stories in his column and readers would respond. He was given a lot of silver loving bowls by people he had helped. He tried to do good."

But when the editors refused to run a column he had written in the early '80s during a gasoline shortage, advising people to save on gas by letting their cars coast, he quit.

"He was trying to be funny," his wife said, "but the editors said they couldn't run something like that. The subject was too serious."

Bill became editor of the South Philly Review and the Welcomat, and then went to work for a legal newsletter, Andrews News Litigation Reports, covering the courts and getting other news of interest to lawyers.

After learning the business, Bill started his own "Keough Inc.," which he ran until his final illness.

Services are private.

Contributions may be made to the American Cancer Society, 700 Horizon Circle, Suite 201, Chalfont PA 18914.


Above: a June 2008 GAG RECAP cover by veteran gag cartoonist Roy Delgado.

Related: WHAT ARE YOU NUTS? a collection of his GAG RECAP columns at Google Books.

My thanks to my friends Dan Danglo and Cynthia Lance.


I have heard through the grapevine that GAG RECAP is for sale. I have no further information at this time.