Customer Reviews

FoxTrot the Works

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I personally enjoy most of the FoxTrot comic strips, which follow a family of five through their everyday lives. The father, Roger, is a mid-level office worker with a bland career. His wife Andy has developed a successful career as a columnist. Their children consist of Peter, a wannabe athelete; Paige, a fashion and social conscious teenager; and Jason, a nerdy elementary schoolkid.

This book really begins to establish the characters and the storytelling, which is why I only give it four stars instead of five. The first half of the book starts out with some simple jokes, gags, and storylines that the average reader would enjoy but the longtime FoxTrot fan might find a little tame. Towards the end of the book, however, the characterization is very solid, the jokes are more original, and the storylines are very good. Some of the storylines deal with quite serious scenarios (such as Jason falling off the roof of his house) with a skillful mixture of humor and seriousness that make FoxTrot the excellent comic strip that it is.

This is not just any FoxTrot treasury, it's also the first! If you're starting FoxTrot library, get this book first. The first treasury book also contains the FIRST FoxTrot strip! We also see how Peter met his girlfriend Denise, how Andy got her column published, what's Andy's column is about, and we also see that Peter loved Linda before he met Denise, and also see that Jason had a different teacher before his current teacher Ms. O'Mally appeared, and how Jason created "Slug-Man"! etc. I highly recommend it.

Drawn in a very simple style with both eyes on one side of the face and big, mitt-like ears, the Fox family is introduced to the American funnies with a very saucy sense of humor and all those playful little details that you may have missed the first time you looked. There's Roger Fox, the mild-mannered head of the household with his obsession to win at everything with golf and chess, his self-righteous wife, Andrea Fox (call her Andy) who scolds and nags just like any other soccer moms and prides in her original eggplant-and-tofu receipes (no wonder the kids are all so skinny it really hurts!), Peter Fox the lovable (believe it or not) teenager son under his trademark baseball cap who's crazy about sports and his sweetheart, the blind Deanna; Paige Fox the short-tempered, abusive blonde sister who's got a thing for shopping malls, chocolate, and boys, and last of all, Jason Fox, the inventive know-it-all behind his eye-free glasses who really loves school, science fiction, and computers. Oh, and don't forget the pet of the house, Quincy the Iguana who doesn't really say much. Just sit back and watch as Roger Fox gets creamed at the basketball games with his son, Andy Fox gets floored by Jason's practical jokes, Paige Fox gets ambushed by Quincy's claws, Jason Fox gets clobbered for the umpteenth time by his angry sister, and Peter Fox gets wiped out on the football field! Pretty crazy family adventures on the typical American surburbs!

I started reading FOXTROT to relieve myself of the awful day of

September 11th. I didn't think it would be that funny, but when

I read it, I laughed sooooooo hard I almost couldn't breath!

FOXTROT, without question, is one of the 2 funniest comics of

all time! I think CALVIN AND HOBBES and FOXTROT are a tie as the

best strips I've ever read! I own all the books!

If you're in the mood for some great laughs, read FOXTROT!

I had never read the strip before I had gotten my hands on FoxTrot the Works. Mr. Amend has made a series that calls us back to our younger days. Most every person has had several of these everyday uproars happen to them, be they in the perspective of the parents or the children. FoxTrot the Works is more than worth most anything asked for it.

It always amazes me how much Amend can convey via simple lines of his art. The characters are drawn in a oversimplified manner, yet at the same time, the reader is completely aware of the characteristics of the characters. The art has fine finish, the story line is original, the math formulas are always true and correct, and do not forget to pay attention to the headlines of newspapers read by the characters (e.g. "Cartoonist Marries Supermodel").

Jason, the youngest of the characters is my hero - obnoxious, yet clever. Peter, a little bit dumb, is a very nice guy. Paige you just want to slap.

I laugh every time I read this book. The Works is great to read in one sitting or a little bit at a time. I highly recommend it to everyone who likes original humor.

On April 10, 1988.... I wasn't alive, yet, more importanly, FoxTrot first was printed in newspapers. A phenom that will hopefully live on for many more years

On with the review:
Bill Amend's first book is a truely awesome work of "art" coming from the brain of a physics major. Unlike the early years of Garfield, (or "classic" Heathcliff) the number of cheap laughs in this book is reduced to single digits.

There, not-so-suprisingly, are very huge artistic contrasts in the FoxTrot comics between now and 1988. There is even a change of drawing styles even inside this book, containing the first 10-11 months of FoxTrot cartoons.

Even way back then, Amend (rhymes with "Raymond") still had a creative mind. In one Sunday cartoon, Roger was reading the Sunday comics; and on that fictional newspaper was the first panel of the cartoon that you were reading.
In Paige's room, there was a picture of a unicorn with a little a little fairy on the ground. In the last panel...the unicorn ate the fairy!!!

While Paige was at the dance, you could see the different things going on in the background.
In the Fox household, there is ususally pictures of pieces of fruit, in some cartoons, the fruit, rotates, changes, or even gets eaten!

Aside from all of the stupid little things, this is a wonderfully compiled book of laughs, and Amend's creativity will force you to smile. A must have!!

Do you like Foxtrot? Are you a recent addition to the Fox family? If so, you want to check out this collection. I tend to prefer the larger collections to the smaller ones for a few reasons - first, you get a whole lot more for not a lot more money; secondly, it fit's better on the shelf; and third, you can really observe the artist's development and the latter is even more evident in this case. This was the first of the large Foxtrot collections and starts from the very beginning so you get to see the family evolve both in how they are drawn as well as how they interract with one another. Can you believe there was a time Jason wasn't excited about school?

I love "Foxtrot". So obviously I love the "Foxtrot" books. But this one takes the cake. It's funny, witty, creative, and I find it easy to relate to. Jason, Paige, and Roger, my three favorite characters, never fail to crack me up. I would reccommend this to everyone. Kids, teenagers, adults, EVERYONE!!!

There is no such thing as mediocre humor in the world of Fox Trot. If I do one thing every day, it's read this strip (Thank God for MSNBC Comics!). The interesting thing about this particular collection of Fox Trot strips is that it is the first. Therefore, it is interesting to see early physical forms of all the characters and compare those with how they look today.