William J. C. Amend III (; born September 20, 1962) is an American cartoonist. He is known for his comic strip ''

FoxTrot The foxtrot is a smooth, progressive dance characterized by long, continuous flowing movements across the dance floor. It is danced to big band (usually vocal) music. The dance is similar in its look to waltz, although the rhythm is in a time ...

''.

Early life

Amend was born in

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

and raised in Northern California. He attended high school in Burlingame,

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

where he was a cartoonist on his school

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

. Amend is an

Eagle Scout Eagle Scout is the highest rank attainable in the Scouts BSA program of Scouting America. Since its inception in 1911, only four percent of Scouts have earned this rank after a lengthy review process. The Eagle Scout rank has been earned by over ...

in the

Boy Scouts of America Scouting America is the largest scouting organization and one of the largest List of youth organizations, youth organizations in the United States, with over 1 million youth, including nearly 200,000 female participants. Founded as the Boy Sco ...

. He graduated with a degree in physics from

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...

in 1984.

Career

After about a month in the animation business, Amend got fired for being unqualified and decided to pursue a cartooning career and got signed on with

Universal Press Syndicate Universal Press Syndicate (UPS), a subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, was an independent press syndicate. It distributed lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and other content. Popular columns include Dear Abby, Ann Coulter, Roger ...

after three years of trying. ''FoxTrot'' first appeared on April 10, 1988. On May 21, 1999, Amherst College awarded him an

honorary degree An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...

as Doctor of Humane Letters. On December 5, 2006, Universal Press Syndicate issued a

press release A press release (also known as a media release) is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing new information, creating an official statement, or making an announcement directed for public releas ...

stating that his strip, ''FoxTrot'', would turn into a Sunday-only strip. Amend stated that he wanted to continue doing the strip, but at a less hurried pace. This news was followed by several weeks of the characters discussing a "cartoonist" semi-retiring to Sundays only, and what methods he would use to phase out the daily strips. The last daily ''FoxTrot'' cartoon was printed on December 30, 2006. Amend also sometimes did guest strips for webcomics such as

Scott Kurtz Scott R. Kurtz (born March 15, 1971) is an American webcomic artist. Known for creating the daily online comic-strip '' PvP'', Kurtz is among the first professional webcomic creators. Career Kurtz was born to a Catholic household in Watsonville ...

's '' PvP'',

Mike Krahulik Michael Krahulik (; born September 25, 1977) is an American artist for the webcomic '' Penny Arcade'' and co-founder with Jerry Holkins of Child's Play, a charity that organizes toy drives for children's hospitals. He goes by the online moniker ...

and

Jerry Holkins Jerry Holkins (born Parkinson"Holkins is a combination of Holcomb (hers) and Parkinson (mine)." https://twitter.com/TychoBrahe/status/12073336701 on February 6, 1976) is an American writer. He is the co-creator and writer of the webcomic '' Penny ...

's ''

Penny Arcade ''Penny Arcade'' is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website ''loonygames.com''. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have establish ...

'', and

Randall Munroe Randall Patrick Munroe (born October 17, 1984) is an American cartoonist, author, and engineer best known as the creator of the webcomic ''xkcd''. Munroe has worked full-time on the comic since late 2006. In addition to publishing a book of the ...

's ''

XKCD ''xkcd'' is a serial webcomic created in 2005 by American author Randall Munroe. Sometimes styled ''XKCD'', the comic's tagline describes it as "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language". Munroe states on the comic's website that the ...

''. On May 26, 2007, Amend was presented with the

Reuben Award The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...

for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

Personal life

Amend made a

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

appearance on ''

The Screen Savers ''The Screen Savers'' is an American TV show that aired on TechTV from 1998 to 2005. The show launched concurrently with the channel ZDTV (later known as TechTV) on May 11, 1998. ''The Screen Savers'' originally centered on computers, new techn ...

'', which aired October 20, 2003, on the former

TechTV TechTV was an American cable television channel with a focus on technology. It was launched as ZDTV on May 11, 1998, by computer magazine publisher Ziff Davis, Ziff-Davis following two short-lived technology-based programs by the company. Init ...

. Amend was also an avid ''

World of Warcraft ''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a 2004 massively multiplayer online role-playing (MMORPG) video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment for Windows and Mac OS X. Set in the '' Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of War ...

'' player who played on the server "Bronzebeard".

References

External links

FoxTrot
Amend's comic and blog
Short bio
at The National Cartoonists Society (with picture) *
Comics: Meet the Artist
With

Foxtrot The foxtrot is a smooth, progressive dance characterized by long, continuous flowing movements across the dance floor. It is danced to big band (usually vocal) music. The dance is similar in its look to waltz, although the rhythm is in a time ...

Cartoonist Bill Amend, Hosted by

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

Comics Editor Suzanne Tobin, 2003.
The Final Archive of Bill Amend's Original Foxtrot Blog
Prior to Apple's

MobileMe MobileMe (branded iTools between 2000 and 2002; .Mac until 2008) is a discontinued subscription business model, subscription-based collection of online services and software offered by Apple Inc. All services were gradually transitioned to and e ...

Shutdown in 2012. {{DEFAULTSORT:Amend, Bill Amherst College alumni People from Burlingame, California People from Northampton, Massachusetts Artists from Kansas City, Missouri Reuben Award winners American comic strip cartoonists American comics writers American comics artists American humorists Living people 1962 births Inkpot Award winners