Fox rut

For years, people have complained about the lameness of newspaper comics. It is rare that a nationally syndicated comic has the ability to amuse on even a semi-regular basis.

"Marmaduke," "Blondie" and the consistently banal "Family Circus" hearken back to a joke style that has been dead for 40 years, since the days of Gomer Pyle and Andy Griffith.

The 2005 FoxTrot collection, "Orlando Bloom Has Ruined Everything" is updated in terms of its pop-culture references and tech-jargon, but its sense of humor is not.

People who apparently lead the most ordinary lives possible should not write comics. Author Bill Amend's humorous three-frame anecdotes follow themes of children wanting good toys for Christmas, communication problems between middle-aged married couples and the ineptitude of the residential father who attempts to perform menial tasks such as making coffee and sending out Christmas cards.

He must be a huge fan of Blue Collar Comedy Tour time-filler Bill Engvall.

Amend deserves slightly more credit than the authors of the 1950s-style strips. He at least expresses his own odd little outlook by occasionally breaking conventions. The hang-up is that the point of view he conveys isn't really humorous, just strange. Strange like the kid in class who would be easy to ignore if he'd stop unconsciously tonguing his front teeth.

The title of the collection makes the point. It is a commentary on Orlando Bloom's sex appeal, and the extent to which his hot bod has made the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy more popular among young women who would otherwise be uninterested in the series. He may have a point, but it's more likely that the mainstream success of the films is due to Peter Jackson's masterful direction than the combined 20 minutes some pretty boy spent onscreen.

Amend indulges in clich?(c) so stale that even his characters seem bitter about it. These characters complain more than a pre-schooler with chicken pox. Every other page features one of the FoxTrots with their eyes squeezed shut, screaming something like, "That isn't what I meant when I said go outside and play!"

If you need the punch line for that one, the kids have dragged the couch and TV outside with their video game console.

Who hasn't tried to pull that hood over ol' Mom's head? Everyone.

Oh yeah, and eating cafeteria food is like participating in a "Fear Factor" challenge. I think I have an unfunny friend who already hit me with that one.

Bill Amend is a bitter old guy whose material offers little to no poignant insight and instead rehashes old jokes that haven't made people laugh in half a century.

Read "Get Fuzzy," "Non-Sequitur" or "The Perry Bible Fellowship" instead, or the greatest newspaper comic of all time, "Calvin and Hobbes."