Getting Ideas: Bill Amend (FoxTrot)

Q: Where do you get your ideas?

“I think really, really, really hard. Seriously, there's no secret magic formula that I know of. It helps to have good characters to work with and to write about things I'm interested in, certainly. And the always looming do-or-die deadlines seem to help me, inexplicably.” [1]

Q: How have you been able to come up with so many ideas for so long?

There is a moment in just about every week where I stare at my blank piece of paper and think that the well has at last run dry and it's all over for me. And then somehow through a mix of panic and caffeine I get seven decent ideas out and live to see another week. I think what helps me most is through luck and design, I've put together a cast of characters that lets me cover a very wide range of subjects. So I can write computer jokes and golf jokes and academic jokes, etc., and having that sort of range gives me a lot of options when ideas seem scarce.” [2]

Q: What gives you ideas for Fox Trot, your family, or your Siblings?

“Most of the stuff in the strip is made up, but there are certainly influences from my own experiences both as a kid growing up and now as a husband/father.” [2]

Q: How do you go about producing ideas?

A: I drink a lot of coffee and hope that my brain vibrates enough that ideas will pop out. Seriously, I just try to be observant – the world’s full of humor – little nuggets of funny situations wherever you go, and this is particularly true when you’re doing a family strip. I suppose that for about 50% of the strips I depend on some sort of blurred memory of my family – things that happened, recollections of how I felt at different times, and so on. [3]

Q: What’s your writing routine like?

A: I start out with a clean yellow legal pad and begin scribbling down a 2-or-3 word description of some idea that may work, such as the birthday of one of the characters, back-to-school, or a family vacation. I may do a dozen of these in 10 minutes, and they get the brain wheels going along the line of an isolated strip, or of a whole week of strips on the same subject. I then write my dialogue, without any pictures, and the results almost look like a movie script. Previously I have Xeroxed sheets with the outlines of the 4 panels indicated. I write the dialogue in each panel, make rough sketches of the characters involved in each one. [3]

[1] Bill Amend’s FAQ Page
http://homepage.mac.com/billamend/faq.html

[2] Washington Post: Meet the Artist with Bill Amend
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/03/regular/style/comics/r_style_comics021403.htm

[3] 1989 Interview with FoxTrot’s Bill Amend.
http://bakertoons.blogspot.com/2010/02/early-foxtrot-interview.html