Fred Basset

Fred Basset
Fred Basset logo featuring two poses of Fred
Author(s)	Alex Graham, Michael Martin
Website	Fred Basset at Gocomics.com
Current status / schedule	Currently in syndication
Launch date	1963
End date	Ongoing
Alternate name(s)	Wurzel in Germany, Lillo il Cane Saggio (Lillo the wise dog) in Italy, Lorang in Norway, Laban in Sweden, and Retu, Pitko or Koiraskoira in Finland
Syndicate(s)	Universal Uclick
Genre(s)	Humor

Fred Basset is a comic strip about a male basset hound. The cartoon was created by Scottish cartoonist Alex Graham and published first in the Daily Mail on 8 July 1963. It has since been syndicated around the world.

Fred Basset has been published in the United Kingdom newspaper Daily Mail, and latterly The Mail On Sunday, from 1963 to the present. Alex Graham, the creator and cartoonist based Fred on his own dog Frieda and drew over 9,000 comic strips. Alex Graham died on 3 December 1991. Fred's cartoon strips are renamed as Wurzel in Germany, Lillo il Cane Saggio (Lillo the wise dog) in Italy, Lorang in Norway, Laban in Sweden and Retu, Pitko or Koiraskoira in Finland.

Fred's owners are a middle-aged husband and wife, who are not given names in the strip. The husband is a professional worker in the City of London; he enjoys socialising at his local pubs, The Swan and The Chequers, and The Rose and Crown. He is shown often as being temperamental and spends much free time reading the newspaper, walking Fred and playing golf. The wife manages the house and the family, and has a busy life socialising with friends. She is shown several times as being a bad driver with many accidents with the family car. Known relations to the family are "her rich eccentric" Uncle Albert, and her sisters, one in UK and one overseas. A new relation introduced during the mid-1990s was mentioned as "her Aunt Flo." There are not any children in Fred's immediate family, although Amanda and the Tucker Twins appear regularly.

The names and areas pictured are made from places and people Alex Graham knew, areas are said to resemble Scotland. Family friends' names would be used, as was Tinker's Wood, taken from a house Graham lived in.

Topical references are kept to a minimum; one mention of The Beatles and the family's continually recovered lounge sofa suite are the few giveaways of its age. There are mentions to New Year during 1970 and 1971 and 1 January 1973 when the UK entered the common market. The Michael Martin era strips have more topical references and mention of modern appliances, such as mobile phones and a microwave oven. Later strips by Michael Martin feature some popular culture references such as Am I Bovvered featured in the 2008 annual.