My thoughts exactly. Its’ been a good ride.
This is so not fair. Whatever happened to the days when cartoonists worked until they died and then went into repeats? I am seriously bummed.
About time.
I was seriously thinking about starting a thread on how bad the strip has gotten. Aside from Jason’s references to pop culture, I can’t think of any new jokes or developments this strip has offered in five years.
It was very entertaining once, but that was long, long ago.
I’ll disagree with Clark K and say that FoxTrot continues to be a font of amusement, and will be missed.
Still, I can see where Bill Amend might be feeling burned out and wants to do something different. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.
Fox Trot still gives me frequent amusement, but I’ll add my vote to the others who think it’s a good thing to quit while your strip is still funny. I don’t think it is in the power of anyone, however talented, to keep a strip funny for 10 or 15 years, let alone a longer period of time. Even Calvin and Hobbes were starting to become stale near the end.
For those who are looking for an online comic strip, I recommend Sluggy Freelance which still manages good punch lines after almost 10 years. It will take a while to get acclimated to it, if you are a new reader, since the characters are numerous and there are many references to past plotlines. But you can read it from the beginning at the website.
I dunno, I still read Sluggy daily, but I definitely feel Pete’s not as funny as he was in he earlier years (just go back to the first “Dimension of Pain” story arc for an example). Too much of a tendency to try and write “deeper” stories, if ya asks me. The Suicide Bikini Saturday fill-in strips are more Sluggy Classic, as a counterexample.
I hope before the dailies stop, he wraps up the mystery of what ever happened to that nice blind girl that Peter was dating. She just sort of dropped off the face of the earth.
That’s sad. I haven’t read newspaper comics in a while, not having a subscription, but Foxtrot was one of the few good ones left after the Great Comic Exodus that claimed C&H and The Far Side.
I think Pete does a fine job when he writes dramatic arcs that are character-driven rather than plot-driven. The recent Shadow World story was as good as anything in the early years, but Oceans Unmoving was a big soggy mess.
But the real problem with Sluggy these days is that it’s just not funny anymore. At some point, Pete forgot how to write jokes wherein the punchline is anything other than “hyuck hyuck ______ is a total moron!”
[sub]…Nahhhhhhh.
Too easy.[/sub]
I really like this strip. I like the kids and the goofy reference the cartoonist puts in (he is usually on the front page of the newspaper or magazine one of the characters is reading).
I like the mom-a very honest portrayal.
It’s sad that the funny papers aren’t funny anymore. How do things like Dondi and Nancy survive? WHEN will they die? And if I could have one lousy wish-I would take that Brenda Starr skank and bitch-slap her right outta the paper…
Garfield should be drowned, along with the entire Family Circus. I’m sure there are others.
Too bad about this strip, though. damn.
Shoot - I used to work with Bill Amend’s girlfriend, but have lost track with her…
Kinda bizarre to go from “oh, hey, good news - my boyfriend’s comic is getting picked up in newspapers!” to it getting retired…
man, I’m old.
UserFriendly is the number one comic on my bookmark list. It is followed by Irregular Webcomic ,
The Whiteboard, Sinfest ,Something Positive and Questionable Content .
Who needs coffee when you read all that first thing in the morning?
There’s always Ballard Street http://www.comics.com/creators/ballardst/archive/ballardst-20061108.html
van Amerongen has always cracked me up.
Awwww. Rats. FoxTrot has got to me my favorite comic strip; I was just reading one of my FoxTrot books before I read this. This is disappointing news, but hopefully the Sunday strips will be higher quality.
Aww, come on, Ike, make it a double-shot because I kinda wondered the same thing about the blind girlfriend…except I forgot that I wondered until Shoeless brought it up.
Ugh. That sucks.
That means there’s going to be another gap in the local rag’s comics section, which they’ll undoubtedly fill with more bland crap like “Mutts.”
Add me to the daily readers lamenting this development. I hope my local doesn’t drop the sunday strip.
I’m disappointed, but not particularly surprised. Is it just me, or has Amend been taking a lot of vacations and re-running old strips the past few years?
And am I the only one who remembers absolutely nothing about Peter dating a blind girl? I’ve been reading it every day for at least 5 or 6 years, and I don’t remember seeing that ever come up.
Denise? If you’re as unobservant as I am, for a long time you may have thought he just was dating someone with a propensity for sunglasses.