Advertisement

BLACK BART SAYS DRAW by Bill...

Share

BLACK BART SAYS DRAW by Bill Amend (Andrews & McMeel: $7.95). Amend has an exceptional memory for what it was like to grow up with siblings--and the extraordinary efforts brothers and sisters will make to antagonize each other. The three kids in his comic strip “Fox Trot” constantly bicker in ways that any Baby Boomer will recognize immediately. Amend wisely balances his vision of the daily Armageddon with occasional glimpses of the affection that Peter, Paige and Jason feel for each other, but would rather die than express openly. As Berke Breathed’s paraplegic Vietnam veteran, Cutter John, failed to make the transition from “Bloom County” to “Outland,” Denise, Peter’s blind girlfriend, remains the only regular handicapped character in a major daily comic. Neither a fragile victim nor a smarmy credit to her strip, Denise is a likeable, intelligent teen-ager who just happens to be blind.

Advertisement