EIGHT YARDS, DOWN AND OUT by...

EIGHT YARDS, DOWN AND OUT by Bill Amend (Andrews & McMeel: $8.95). The newest collection of the comic strip “Fox Trot” confirms Amend’s status as one of the nation’s best young cartoonists. He finds humor in the internal squabbles and crises of a middle-class family of five, but instead of rehashing the contrived domestic disasters of “Blondie” or the threadbare family jokes in “Hi and Lois,” he offers a credible if slightly skewed portrait of a trio of kids and their parents. Like real brothers and sisters, Peter, Paige and Jason Fox spend so much time bickering among themselves, they rarely pause to realize they care for each other. Amend has begun experimenting with a wider range of expressions in his drawings, and the very funny results will strike a resonant chord in anyone who had to share his childhood with siblings.