If you don't read the funny pages in the Sunday newspaper, then it's entirely possible that you're missing out on FoxTrot, one of the cleverest and most varied comic strips to reach the general public since Calvin & Hobbes.FoxTrot, started back in 1988, is your quintessential Fox family sitcom. (That is, about a family with the last name of Fox; not the kind of sitcom you'd find on Fox. We have standards about the kind of material we review.) The characters appeal to a wide audience, wider than, say, Drew Carey, or, for that matter, Drew Carey's audience.
There's Andy, the mother and thankless housekeeper of the family who is a writer, through and through, and a disgustingly healthy cook; Roger, the overworked, football-crazy father who's out of touch with technology and modern trends; Peter, the music-loving, face-stuffing oldest son who's too much of a jock to be a geek and too much of a geek to be a jock; Paige, the teenage daughter in the middle who's into hunky boys and fashion and can't cook to save her life; and Jason, the smart and consummately nerdy little brother with a pet iguana and a penchant for terrorizing his older sister.
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And that's to say nothing of the numerous supporting characters, from Morton Goldthwait, the nerd who out-nerds the nerdiest of nerds, to Paige's impossibly suave dream boyfriend (literally, dream boyfriend), Pierre.Ooooh, Pierre.
FoxTrot is frequently clever and witty, and both the stories and the humor often come from the dynamic character interactions, which help to keep the comics fresh--a strip with, say, just Peter and Roger in it has a different plot, sense of humor, and feel than a strip with Jason, Paige, and Andy in it.
FoxTrot can be found in over a thousand different newspapers, in book collections, and on the Web at www.foxtrot.com. It's a great laugh with characters that you'll quickly grow to love, and it's delightfully geeky.
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