Universal Press Syndicate has announced that cartoonist Bill Amend, creator of the comic strip Foxtrot, will stop doing daily strips at the end of the year, continuing the strip as a Sundays only feature:
Kansas City, MO (12/05/2006) Bill Amend’s popular FoxTrot comic strip will go to a Sunday-only publication schedule as of Dec. 31, 2006, announced Universal Press Syndicate today. The last daily will be Saturday, Dec. 30. Reruns of dailies will be available for Web usage.
“After spending close to half of my life writing and drawing FoxTrot cartoons, I think it’s time I got out of the house and tried some new things,” said Amend. “I love cartooning and I absolutely want to continue doing the strip, just not at the current all-consuming pace. I’ve been blessed over the years with a terrific syndicate, patient newspaper clients, and more support from readers than I probably deserve, and I want to assure them all that while I’ll be now a less-frequent participant on the comics pages, I’ll continue to treat my visits as the special privilege they are.”
I’m always sad when a favourite strip retires, so I’m glad there will at least be new Sunday installments, and I certainly don’t begrudge Amend the chance to explore new creative outlets. But, darn.
adamselzer
Don’t look now, but there are also plans to end For Better or For Worse next year.
Rob Wynne
Yeah, but that’s been announced for years, so I’ve had plenty of time to get used to the idea. (Lynn Johnston revealed she was going to end the strip when she signed her last syndication renewal 4 years ago.)
cellio
Bummer. But I’d rather this than a slow fizzle.
bikergeek
yeah. I’m glad it’s become The Thing To Do to stop drawing a strip when you get tired of it, or when you feel you’ve run out of original ideas. Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, The Far Side, and a couple of webcomics I can think of all avoided the fate that befell Peanuts. Now, Charlie Schulz was a veritable god of the funny papers, but his strip devolved over the decades from his characters giving insightful social commentary to “kids say the darndest things” along the lines of Family Circus (which, BTW, is another strip that sucks--it sucks so badly it makes the other strips around it seem unfunny). So many strips have been around for decades, long after they’ve ceased being at all funny.