Book Review: Wrapped-Up FoxTrot by Bill Amend

Stars: 4 out of 5
Pros: Still funny after all these years...

Cons: ...even if many of the jokes are familiar

The Bottom Line:

Familiar punch lines

But still can elicit laughs

As daily strip ends

The End of the Daily Adventures of the Fox Family

After 19 years, cartoonist Bill Amend decided to semi-retire.  While he no longer does the daily version of his comic strip FoxTrot, he still does a Sunday comic.  Wrapped-Up FoxTrot collects the final year and a half of the daily (and Sunday) strips.  All of them have been previously released in the books Houston, You Have a Problem and And When She Opened the Closet, All the Clothes Were Polyester!

Things are still pretty much the same in the Fox family.  Father Roger burns the hamburgers and can't get anyone, including the computer, to play chess against him (he's that bad).  Mom Andy just tries her hardest to hold things together.  Oldest son Peter, a high school junior, thinks he is a jock.  Now, if only a coach would agree.  Freshman daughter Paige is boy crazy.  And the youngest, Jason, is an ultra, ultra, ultra, ultra geek and the genius of his 5th grade class.

This collection consists of some single gag strips and longer week long stories.  Jason makes a friend via the online version of computer game "World of Warquest" only to learn it is his class nemesis Eileen.  Andy becomes hooked on the "Nintendo Dogs" video game and doesn't let Jason have his system back.  Paige becomes a JJV cheerleader.  Jason gets Peter to play King Kong in his home movie version of the story.

The problem with a strip that has been running for 19 years is that a cartoonist can run out of ideas.  That does show here at times.  I mean, how many times can Jason's pet iguana chew up stuff?  But we also get some great jokes about cartoonists filling in for each other.

And I love the cultural references.  The strips originally were published in 2005 and 2006, so some of the jokes references movies that came out during that time, like Jason dressing up for Superman Returns.  There are a couple great strips aimed at 24.  And the size of the Complete Calvin and Hobbes set also provides a good laugh.

The final week of strips gave Bill Amend a chance to thank his fans for their loyalty over the years.  Yes, they were funny.  But it was also a night gesture.

Frankly, even with the familiar elements behind many of the jokes, I still found myself laughing on just about every page.  He still finds just the tweak needed to make the familiar not seem so stale.

And so Wrapped-Up FoxTrot may not be the strip at it's absolutely best.  But it is still plenty funny.  Fans will want to add this book to their collection so they can laugh at it over and over again.