Posted on 03/02/2007 6:01:45 AM PST by LibertarianInExile
Kansas City, MO (12/05/2006) Bill Amend’s popular FoxTrot comic strip will go to a Sunday-only publication schedule as of Dec. 31, 2006, announced Universal Press Syndicate today. The last daily will be Saturday, Dec. 30. Reruns of dailies will be available for Web usage.
“After spending close to half of my life writing and drawing FoxTrot cartoons, I think it’s time I got out of the house and tried some new things,” said Amend. “I love cartooning and I absolutely want to continue doing the strip, just not at the current all-consuming pace. I’ve been blessed over the years with a terrific syndicate, patient newspaper clients, and more support from readers than I probably deserve, and I want to assure them all that while I’ll be now a less-frequent participant on the comics pages, I’ll continue to treat my visits as the special privilege they are.”
Amend, who started the strip in April, 1988, and who has more than 1,000 client newspapers, is taking time to pursue other creative outlets. “In addition to Sunday newspapers, we may see FoxTrot entertaining us in other kinds of media platforms,” says Lee Salem, president and editor of Universal Press Syndicate.
Amend has more than 30 published FoxTrot comic collections and has licensed his characters for calendars and wallpapers for cell phones. He was nominated in 2006 as a finalist for cartoonist of the year by the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award.
So this is probably old news to others, but it was news to me.
Too bad we live in a world where comics that were once funny must be constantly rerun, while the new blood that is funny doesn't seem to be making it in wide syndication. Burying great comics like Pearls, Monty, Sheldon, and Lio, while decades-old punch lines like those of Cathy, Andy Capp, and Peanuts are still (re)running daily, is just...sad.
Good to see FoxTrot is still going, albeit on Sundays only...it's still one of the funniest strips on the papers.
That, and Pearls before Swine...
I wish Sheldon or Big Nate would make it into more papers. Both those comics make me laugh every time I read `em.
Pearls and Get Fuzzy are now pretty much everywhere, and consistently good, too (yes, I know the latter is tree-hugger biased, but funny is funny).
I wondered why it had vanished from the local rag.
Let me recommend some quality replacements, if you don't already know about them: State of the Union, Liberty Meadows and Prickly City. The first has been most consistently funny across the board--and conservative. The middle one's got the best art (holy schnykies is the art good) and the latter's conservative and generally pretty funny, too. Prickly City gets a tad preachy, occasionally, tho.
Dilbert is good on occasion.
When will Gary Trudeau retire? I've been offended by his strip so often that I purposely avoid reading it...and would rather not have it in my newspaper at all.
Dilbert is funny, but lately teetering on the brink of Cathy-ization, where the joke is always the same.
I read Doonesbury...but then, I read ALL the comics. Still, Doonesbury is actually funnier than some of the retread crap. At least Doonesbury's not repeating the same lines day after day. Sure, same VIEWS, and sure, I'm as tired of him as you are, but I'd rather have Trudeau there than Peanuts reruns, frankly. But given a choice, give me something entirely different from both. I'd rather read the funnies--skipping politics on those pages would be a real positive for me. Not that I want them dropped, as I like Mallard Fillmore and State of the Union (as I mentioned), but why put them in the funnies when they're political commentary? I like when papers put them in the opinion section. Far better than reading whatever tripe Maureen Dowd has to spout.
That was the strip that tipped me off.
Leave it to Pastis to catch the 'other media platforms' = 'video games' connection.
I did not know about this. Sad to hear. I have most of the Large size FoxTrot collections. And I still have the iFruit wallpaper somewhere.
Oh AMEN!
OooooH!
New hat!
I just love the crocs...
They are certainly single minded!
And hilarious!
"Wat rong wit you, Son?"
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