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FoxTrot Anthologies
FoxTrot en masse
The Fox household is a non-stop, always funny, Kids, parents, and a pet iguana collide with each other and with the trappings of our times in ways that are at once surprising and yet familiar to us all. Readers young and old see themselves in this work, and readers young and old are fast becoming hooked.
This treasury, FoxTrot En Masse , contains all the cartoons from Black Bart Says Draw and Eight Yards, Down and Out .
This treasury, FoxTrot En Masse , contains all the cartoons from Black Bart Says Draw and Eight Yards, Down and Out .
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
4 people are currently reading
568 people want to read
About the author
Bill Amend
65 books302 followersBill Amend is an American cartoonist, best known for his comic strip FoxTrot.
Born as William J. C. Amend III, Amend attended high school in Burlingame, California where he was a cartoonist on his school newspaper. Amend is an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. He attended Amherst College, where he drew comics for the college paper. He majored in physics and graduated in 1984.
After a short time in the animation business, Amend decided to pursue a cartooning career and signed on with Universal Press Syndicate. FoxTrot first appeared on April 10, 1988.
Amend currently lives in the midwestern United States with his wife and two children, a boy and girl.
Born as William J. C. Amend III, Amend attended high school in Burlingame, California where he was a cartoonist on his school newspaper. Amend is an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. He attended Amherst College, where he drew comics for the college paper. He majored in physics and graduated in 1984.
After a short time in the animation business, Amend decided to pursue a cartooning career and signed on with Universal Press Syndicate. FoxTrot first appeared on April 10, 1988.
Amend currently lives in the midwestern United States with his wife and two children, a boy and girl.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
July 3, 2023
These strips may be old-school, but the humor is timeless.
January 25, 2021
ReRead 25 January 2021
---
I spent my formative years buying and devouring Foxtrot anthologies from Borders. To my young mind, it was funnier than a lot of other newspaper comic strips. To my older-but-still-sorta-youngish mind, it's still one of the consistently funnier comic strips. But it's also deeper than that.
Newspaper comics is not a tough medium to understand. A joke (well, usually a joke) has to be delivered in a few panels (more on Sundays), so the storylines can't be too complicated (unless they're serials, but those are usually dramas and suggest a separate discussion entirely). And newspaper comics are meant to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, so the humor can't be offensive, and though some strips try to push the boundaries a little here and there, most can't pull off anything truly transgressive.
In general, comics feel very safe and, if we're being honest, a little bland. There are those strips (The Far Side, Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, to name a few) that are noted for doing something different, something revolutionary. But most are just . . . there. And there's nothing wrong with that, I don't think. I visit my parents' house once a week, and I still enjoy sitting down to read the Sunday Funnies. But newspaper comics are, let's face it, a medium from which people don't expect much. Which, from what I can tell, has led to some pretty interesting analyses of that medium.
Take Garfield, for example. Garfield, by Jim Davis's own admission, is meant to be marketable first, funny second. And, having been around for years, his creation has become more and more of an institution, an icon, transcending the scope of its original form. And with that institutionalization comes critique: the internet has responded to Garfield's success with remixes and recontextualizations. Garfield Minus Garfield imagines Jon Arbuckle as mad man shouting into the void. Lasagna Cat (my favorite of the Garfield reimaginings) acts out individual scripts and enhances the "joke" with an accompanying music video. And because the plots of Garfield comics are so simple, fans and "fans" have posited complex theories to account for unanswered questions. Did Jon really drink dog semen in that one strip? We may never know.
What is to be known is that audiences are demanding more and more from their art in the 21st century. Simple stories told simply no longer satisfy. There must be motivations for actions, and reasons for motivations for actions, and reasons for the reasons for motivations for actions. That sounds like a trivialization, but I see it as the inevitable evolution of art. In any medium, a groundwork is laid of basic tropes and expectations. Once those tropes and expectations are identified and studied to death, they lose their impact, and more is expected.
I do not think this is a bad thing. But what does that mean for our enjoyment of older, less complicated works? Do these post-modern reinterpretations of Garfield make the original more or less funny, or do they exist as their own separate thing, despite being reliant on Jim Davis's work for their existence? There are those who will always enjoy Garfield un-ironically. But for those who respond well to these reinterpretations, what is their relationship to the source material?
Which brings me to Foxtrot. A part of me still likes Foxtrot for purely aesthetic reasons: the cartoony style, the choice of language, the occasional flights of fancy into genre worlds. The family dynamic reminds me of my own sometimes-dysfunctional family, and I'm appreciative of all the references to nerd culture. Part of my enjoyment, I'm sure, is pure nostalgia for a time when I could read the Sunday Funnies over a bowl of sugary cereal.
And yet I can't read Foxtrot the same way I used to. I'm incapable of it. I see Jason's broken glasses and I imagine how painful Paige's punch must feel. I read Roger's pleading for someone, anyone to play him at chess, and his begging reeks of desperation. Andy's exhaustion feels all too real, and I don't even have one kid, let alone three. I have come to imagine the reality of the world in which the Foxtrot characters live. And I'm realizing, for the first time, that it can be a dark place.
In this collection, there's a storyline in which Peter's mad at his girlfriend for pulling a prank on him. And he stews in it. And stews in it. And the storyline becomes less about the prank and more about his inability to let go and move on. And as one would expect, by the end of the week he's learned a valuable lesson, Denise (his girlfriend) has forgiven him, and everything is back to normal.
But this happens again and again.
There are several storylines in which Peter is a jerk to his girlfriend, and the response is always the same: his family realizes how much of a jerk he is being, Peter doesn't get it, eventually he does, and all is made right in the end. But in the real world, how would that play out. A boyfriend with volatile emotions who consistently blows up at his girlfriend? That seems abusive. And the fact that people stay in those relationships in real life makes that storyline all the sadder.
Not on the surface, of course. You read these strips in daily installments and your focus (usually) is on the joke in the last panel. And there's investment in a storyline, but for a strip like Foxtrot, you know there won't be lasting percussions. It's not that kind of strip, and it's not (typically) that kind of medium.
The main family in Foxtrot are built on archetypes: the doofy dad, the beleaguered mom, the jock brother, the nerdy brother, the annoying sister. They have their likes and dislikes, other traits that flesh out their characters, but when presented with certain situations, they default back to archetypal responses. Which is odd. You read enough of a character--not a type, but a character--and you think you know how they'll respond in a situation. And then they respond, and it's expected, but not what you expected. It's sitcom, but it's not organic to what you expect these characters to do.
There's something almost mythic about it. We know of these archetypes because they established the stories--all stories--that we tell, and we're comforted by knowing how the story will unfold. That, to me, is what makes newspaper comics popular. They are formulaic, we know what to expect from them. They may not be ha-ha funny, but we're comforted in knowing that some sort of amusement will come.
And make no mistake, Foxtrot is amusing. And ha-ha funny at times, even. But it can also be disturbing, sometimes, when you stop and think about the implications of what you're reading. And that doesn't always feel coincidental. Whereas other strips are perfectly content just telling a joke, a story, Foxtrot will get meta. Not as meta, perhaps, as Pearls Before Swine, but it does operate a gray area in which its characters sometimes know that they're in a comic strip. Which can make it jarring when storylines get serious, like an argument in a relationship. But it can also lead to real, sweet catharsis you don't normally find in the funnies. Very rarely do you see Andy and Roger being a mutually affectionate married couple, no veiled resentment, no blatant ignorance. And yet you have that, a moment when it's just love. And, for lack of a better explanation, it works. It just works.
This review spiraled out into something completely different than what I intended to write, and I'm loathe to go back and edit it because, really, it's a Goodreads review. But my point, ultimately, is this: think outside of the confines of a medium. That's where the interesting stuff lies. As a comic strip, Garfield is exactly what it should be. But take it out of the parameters of safe, bland newspaper funnies, and you have a property that's bizarre, dark and comic all at the same time. Likewise, Foxtrot is what it is because it's written for newspapers. But there are times when you can feel it tugging, tugging towards something else. I wanted to mention this earlier, but many strips begin and end with identical dialogue. There's a cyclical nature to them: a structurally poetic choice.
Of course that could just be me. At the end of the day, I'm inclined towards the idea that prevailing cultural trend are bunkum. They exist for a reason, sure, but to use them to predict anything or to glean deeper meaning strikes me as being semi-falacious. People enjoy what they enjoy, and individual taste is highly idiosyncratic.
That being said, I enjoy Foxtrot and I think you will too. Check it out.
---
I spent my formative years buying and devouring Foxtrot anthologies from Borders. To my young mind, it was funnier than a lot of other newspaper comic strips. To my older-but-still-sorta-youngish mind, it's still one of the consistently funnier comic strips. But it's also deeper than that.
Newspaper comics is not a tough medium to understand. A joke (well, usually a joke) has to be delivered in a few panels (more on Sundays), so the storylines can't be too complicated (unless they're serials, but those are usually dramas and suggest a separate discussion entirely). And newspaper comics are meant to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, so the humor can't be offensive, and though some strips try to push the boundaries a little here and there, most can't pull off anything truly transgressive.
In general, comics feel very safe and, if we're being honest, a little bland. There are those strips (The Far Side, Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, to name a few) that are noted for doing something different, something revolutionary. But most are just . . . there. And there's nothing wrong with that, I don't think. I visit my parents' house once a week, and I still enjoy sitting down to read the Sunday Funnies. But newspaper comics are, let's face it, a medium from which people don't expect much. Which, from what I can tell, has led to some pretty interesting analyses of that medium.
Take Garfield, for example. Garfield, by Jim Davis's own admission, is meant to be marketable first, funny second. And, having been around for years, his creation has become more and more of an institution, an icon, transcending the scope of its original form. And with that institutionalization comes critique: the internet has responded to Garfield's success with remixes and recontextualizations. Garfield Minus Garfield imagines Jon Arbuckle as mad man shouting into the void. Lasagna Cat (my favorite of the Garfield reimaginings) acts out individual scripts and enhances the "joke" with an accompanying music video. And because the plots of Garfield comics are so simple, fans and "fans" have posited complex theories to account for unanswered questions. Did Jon really drink dog semen in that one strip? We may never know.
What is to be known is that audiences are demanding more and more from their art in the 21st century. Simple stories told simply no longer satisfy. There must be motivations for actions, and reasons for motivations for actions, and reasons for the reasons for motivations for actions. That sounds like a trivialization, but I see it as the inevitable evolution of art. In any medium, a groundwork is laid of basic tropes and expectations. Once those tropes and expectations are identified and studied to death, they lose their impact, and more is expected.
I do not think this is a bad thing. But what does that mean for our enjoyment of older, less complicated works? Do these post-modern reinterpretations of Garfield make the original more or less funny, or do they exist as their own separate thing, despite being reliant on Jim Davis's work for their existence? There are those who will always enjoy Garfield un-ironically. But for those who respond well to these reinterpretations, what is their relationship to the source material?
Which brings me to Foxtrot. A part of me still likes Foxtrot for purely aesthetic reasons: the cartoony style, the choice of language, the occasional flights of fancy into genre worlds. The family dynamic reminds me of my own sometimes-dysfunctional family, and I'm appreciative of all the references to nerd culture. Part of my enjoyment, I'm sure, is pure nostalgia for a time when I could read the Sunday Funnies over a bowl of sugary cereal.
And yet I can't read Foxtrot the same way I used to. I'm incapable of it. I see Jason's broken glasses and I imagine how painful Paige's punch must feel. I read Roger's pleading for someone, anyone to play him at chess, and his begging reeks of desperation. Andy's exhaustion feels all too real, and I don't even have one kid, let alone three. I have come to imagine the reality of the world in which the Foxtrot characters live. And I'm realizing, for the first time, that it can be a dark place.
In this collection, there's a storyline in which Peter's mad at his girlfriend for pulling a prank on him. And he stews in it. And stews in it. And the storyline becomes less about the prank and more about his inability to let go and move on. And as one would expect, by the end of the week he's learned a valuable lesson, Denise (his girlfriend) has forgiven him, and everything is back to normal.
But this happens again and again.
There are several storylines in which Peter is a jerk to his girlfriend, and the response is always the same: his family realizes how much of a jerk he is being, Peter doesn't get it, eventually he does, and all is made right in the end. But in the real world, how would that play out. A boyfriend with volatile emotions who consistently blows up at his girlfriend? That seems abusive. And the fact that people stay in those relationships in real life makes that storyline all the sadder.
Not on the surface, of course. You read these strips in daily installments and your focus (usually) is on the joke in the last panel. And there's investment in a storyline, but for a strip like Foxtrot, you know there won't be lasting percussions. It's not that kind of strip, and it's not (typically) that kind of medium.
The main family in Foxtrot are built on archetypes: the doofy dad, the beleaguered mom, the jock brother, the nerdy brother, the annoying sister. They have their likes and dislikes, other traits that flesh out their characters, but when presented with certain situations, they default back to archetypal responses. Which is odd. You read enough of a character--not a type, but a character--and you think you know how they'll respond in a situation. And then they respond, and it's expected, but not what you expected. It's sitcom, but it's not organic to what you expect these characters to do.
There's something almost mythic about it. We know of these archetypes because they established the stories--all stories--that we tell, and we're comforted by knowing how the story will unfold. That, to me, is what makes newspaper comics popular. They are formulaic, we know what to expect from them. They may not be ha-ha funny, but we're comforted in knowing that some sort of amusement will come.
And make no mistake, Foxtrot is amusing. And ha-ha funny at times, even. But it can also be disturbing, sometimes, when you stop and think about the implications of what you're reading. And that doesn't always feel coincidental. Whereas other strips are perfectly content just telling a joke, a story, Foxtrot will get meta. Not as meta, perhaps, as Pearls Before Swine, but it does operate a gray area in which its characters sometimes know that they're in a comic strip. Which can make it jarring when storylines get serious, like an argument in a relationship. But it can also lead to real, sweet catharsis you don't normally find in the funnies. Very rarely do you see Andy and Roger being a mutually affectionate married couple, no veiled resentment, no blatant ignorance. And yet you have that, a moment when it's just love. And, for lack of a better explanation, it works. It just works.
This review spiraled out into something completely different than what I intended to write, and I'm loathe to go back and edit it because, really, it's a Goodreads review. But my point, ultimately, is this: think outside of the confines of a medium. That's where the interesting stuff lies. As a comic strip, Garfield is exactly what it should be. But take it out of the parameters of safe, bland newspaper funnies, and you have a property that's bizarre, dark and comic all at the same time. Likewise, Foxtrot is what it is because it's written for newspapers. But there are times when you can feel it tugging, tugging towards something else. I wanted to mention this earlier, but many strips begin and end with identical dialogue. There's a cyclical nature to them: a structurally poetic choice.
Of course that could just be me. At the end of the day, I'm inclined towards the idea that prevailing cultural trend are bunkum. They exist for a reason, sure, but to use them to predict anything or to glean deeper meaning strikes me as being semi-falacious. People enjoy what they enjoy, and individual taste is highly idiosyncratic.
That being said, I enjoy Foxtrot and I think you will too. Check it out.
March 17, 2009
For good clean family life humor, you can't go wrong with Foxtrot. Following teen angst, parent confusion, and total chaos, Amend does a perfect job of making the reader laugh out loud as you follow the lives of each family member in the Fox family. A great read for a good laugh!
August 17, 2017
This was a re-read. I forgot how much I love the Fox family (Jason is my doppelganger). Amend has nailed the family dynamic.
July 17, 2025
You can NEVER go wrong enjoying a Foxtrot book. Never.
April 17, 2022
A collection of Black Bart Says Draw and Eight Yards Down and Out, this has the benefits of compiling all of those great comics in one book, full-color Sunday strips, and a bonus strip at the end of the collection serving as a sendup to superhero comics. This whole collection is really the point of the work where Amend begins to hit his stride, and you can see the gradual improvement throughout the period from 1989 to 1991.
August 17, 2022
Of course, I first read this in tenth grade. It's pretty good.
September 17, 2025
Peak Foxtrot, with a terrific 'slugman and leach boy' cartoon at the end.
November 30, 2025
Humor collected - perhaps even "En Masse"
July 6, 2018
Got to love Foxtrot. The family dynamics ring true. This is one cartoon family I don’t want to see grow up!
April 17, 2023
FoxTrot's penchant for embedding its stories in the broader societal context makes this and all subsequent volumes interesting time capsules for the years they cover. We see the first of technology and computers, Andy's struggle to balance work and family life, the Simpsons and Nintendo's impact on Jason, the rise of the Chicago Bulls, and the growing popularity of health and fitness.
In terms of the strip itself, we see major character development. Peter and Denise's relationship is new and interesting. Paige's search for sophistication certainly resonates with readers today as much as it did then. We see Jason's creativity and competitive nature emerge. Roger's technology struggles were relatable to adult readers at the time. The technologies have changed now, but I suspect that every adult reader can relate to the feelings they encapsulate. Finally, we see Andy as a supportive wife and mother. Several strips highlight her dedication and love for her family.
The art style is still clearly "early FoxTrot," and the references might be a little dated, but the content has aged well. Given the wealth of FoxTrot books to purchase, this volume might seem easy to pass over or the stories underdeveloped, but that's the wrong way to look at it. These were the formative years for the strip, and if you love the characters or are interested in cartooning or pop culture history, it's worth adding to your collection.
In terms of the strip itself, we see major character development. Peter and Denise's relationship is new and interesting. Paige's search for sophistication certainly resonates with readers today as much as it did then. We see Jason's creativity and competitive nature emerge. Roger's technology struggles were relatable to adult readers at the time. The technologies have changed now, but I suspect that every adult reader can relate to the feelings they encapsulate. Finally, we see Andy as a supportive wife and mother. Several strips highlight her dedication and love for her family.
The art style is still clearly "early FoxTrot," and the references might be a little dated, but the content has aged well. Given the wealth of FoxTrot books to purchase, this volume might seem easy to pass over or the stories underdeveloped, but that's the wrong way to look at it. These were the formative years for the strip, and if you love the characters or are interested in cartooning or pop culture history, it's worth adding to your collection.
January 18, 2009
I think I like FoxTrot better en single, actually. Amend's writing tics come to light when they are all there together. For instance, his (admittedly funny) formula of:
panel one: x
panel two: x+1
panel three: x-1
panel four: x (whose meaning is now completely changed by the two middle panels)
I like it; it is elegant; it gets tiresome.
I don't think I laughed out loud once, which is fine. I was genuinely amused by several of the strips, and, in fact, some of them got more brilliant upon rereading. I appreciated, too, the pathos. The characters ring true, rather than being "types." I like how central the mom, Andy, is, that she is a career woman, and that she is totally the voice of reason. I also like that Peter's girlfriend is blind. I like the uniqueness of the characters.
I am probably going to read the first FoxTrot book next. And this book made me miss the Sunday paper, so kudos!
panel one: x
panel two: x+1
panel three: x-1
panel four: x (whose meaning is now completely changed by the two middle panels)
I like it; it is elegant; it gets tiresome.
I don't think I laughed out loud once, which is fine. I was genuinely amused by several of the strips, and, in fact, some of them got more brilliant upon rereading. I appreciated, too, the pathos. The characters ring true, rather than being "types." I like how central the mom, Andy, is, that she is a career woman, and that she is totally the voice of reason. I also like that Peter's girlfriend is blind. I like the uniqueness of the characters.
I am probably going to read the first FoxTrot book next. And this book made me miss the Sunday paper, so kudos!
August 15, 2016
A collection of some of FoxTrot's earliest dailies and Sunday comics. The Sundays are all in color and dailies in black and white. I believe these are all in chronological order and provide 2 entire years worth of FoxTrot comics. It was a little strange to crack this open after reading And When She Opened the Closet All the Clothes Were Polyester! which is the last collection of dailies. I hadn't realized how much Amend's style had changed over the decades. It's not huge, but it is different and he got better over time. This one starts in 1989, and it is definitely dated in cultural references (they watch Murder She Wrote and Alf on TV and have to use a modem and disks with the computer). But it is also interesting to see the evolution of technology through the pages of Foxtrot. Thanks to Jason, we're kept aware of all the latest in gaming and computer technology. Of course it is still fun, but not as hilarious as more recent years of FoxTrot.
February 19, 2009
Amend is one of the funniest comic artists around. His jokes are funny and hit family relationships squarely on the head. He is a very talented artist, and very imaginative. I love to look for his "Easter eggs" in the form of newspaper articles with comic writer jokes and how from frame to frame the Fox's household picture and magazines will "move". Overall anyone who loves to laugh aloud will enjoy this.
October 3, 2013
When I was working in any of the many bookstores where I was employed and I did not want (or have the time) to read my current book, I would grab one of these collections to read on my too short break. I slowly but surely worked my way through several series. These are great time killers and will usually improve your mood no matter how hectic the day. Laughter can be the best solution to dealing with the public.
This is a collection of smaller collections.
This is a collection of smaller collections.
December 16, 2008
i always thought it was funny how they never aged, but still started school every year. i'm so glad that's not what happens in real life....though i do have to keep going to school every year.....so i guess i'm kinda living the dream...
May 20, 2014
This collection contains earlier strips so the artwork is more blocky and do not look the same as present Sunday Strips do. However, the laughs are present and the themes Bill plays so well are here in their earlier form. Read where Foxtrot is enjoyed!
August 17, 2007
There's no other way of saying it except that FoxTrot is made of awesome. Amen!
October 7, 2007
fun series-like parenting
November 13, 2007
foxtrot is one of the few cartoons that has ever consistently made me laugh out loud. i can read them over and over again if i need a good cheering-up.
Read
October 13, 2008good
February 16, 2010
It's been a long time since I read Fox Trot, but I was reminded of why I enjoyed it. Still funny. Good collection.
July 27, 2011
Another excellent collection of FoxTort cartoons. The drawing style is more what we are used to today. Good stuff.
January 13, 2016
FoxTrot en masse by Bill Amend (Andrews McMeel 1992) (741.5973) is an early collection of more Fox family hilarity. My rating: 7/10, finished 11/5/11.
June 8, 2012
more fun from this comic strip
November 6, 2012
Holy smokes, I giggle so much while I read these. By far, the best comics out there.
May 1, 2015
nice collection of foxtrot comic strips!
September 10, 2013
I love foxtrot and have read all these books several times.
July 24, 2017
Ah! A completely new collection! Couldn't put it down. Very funny, as usual with Foxtrot cartoons. Looking forward to the next book in the collection.
September 2, 2014
Love these comics!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews