Posted in: Comics | Tagged: kickstarter, Ruben Bolling, Tom The Dancing Bug, Trump You

Ruben Bolling's Trump You! Strips Join Tom The Dancing Bug Kickstarter

Ruben Bolling’s Trump You! strips join the Tom The Dancing Bug Kickstarter from Clover Press

Clover Press has launched a Kickstarter campaign to complete their eight-volume set of Ruben Bolling's Tom the Dancing Bug comic strip collections with two new books, collecting the earliest Tom the Dancing Bug strips from the 90s. As part of the Kickstarter campaign, Clover is also releasing Trump You, a comic book collecting Ruben Bolling's Trump-themed Tom the Dancing Bug comic strips. It has already raised $10,316 against a goal of $2,000 from 115 backers with 23 days to go.

Tom the Dancing Bug is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist who has won multiple awards, including the Herblock Prize, the Berryman Award, and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. A weekly comic strip that appears in newspapers across North America and on the internet. Tom the Dancing Bug began as a surreal, sometimes political comic strip that brought a sketch-comedy sensibility to the funny pages. In 2001, the strip shifted and became more politically pointed and satirical in response to the rise of conservatism in a post-9/11 world. In 2016, Tom the Dancing Bug became even more political, with Bolling devoting much of the comic strip to Trump's campaign and subsequent administrations. As more and more legacy print newspapers (especially alternative newspapers) disappeared or downsized in the late 2000s and early 2010s, Tom the Dancing Bug continued to be published online.

In its early years, its subject matter was only occasionally political, and it featured such characters as Max & Doug, Charley the Australopithecine, Louis Maltby, Harvey Richards: Lawyer for Children, God-Man, Sam Roland: The Detective Who Dies, and Billy Dare: Boy Adventurer. Tom the Dancing Bug shifted after 9/11, when Bolling, a New Yorker, felt the need to inject more politics and topical matters into the comic strip's content. New characters of a political bent, like Lucky Ducky and Nate the Neoconservative, were introduced, and the comic's political satire became more frequent and increasingly pointed and specific. In 2016, Tom the Dancing Bug took an even sharper political turn when Bolling decided that Donald Trump represented the political phenomenon of his lifetime, and devoted much of the comic strip to the campaign, which carried over to Trump's administration and beyond. This led to greater recognition of Tom the Dancing Bug, including the 2017 and 2022 National Cartoonists Society Awards, a 2017 Herblock Prize, a 2018 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and a 2021 Berryman Award from the National Press Foundation. Ruben Bolling was a Finalist for the Pulitz

"With the announcement of these two volumes, The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug program will soon stand as a full eight-volume chronicle of 35 years of comics – my life's work," said Ruben Bolling. "I'm grateful to Clover Press for its commitment to the project. The quality of the books has been extraordinary, and I'm honoured to have this complete set in print. These two volumes will document this strip's earliest years, and in some ways, my most audacious and ambitious work." Tom the Dancing Bug: Secret Origins collects Bolling's early comic strips from 1990 to 1994, and Sex, Tom the Dancing Bug, & Rock 'N' Roll will collect Bolling's strips from 1994 to 1998. In addition to the two 200+ page books, the Kickstarter features a collectable 11" x 13" lithograph print, a slipcase that will hold all 8 volumes of Clover Press's Tom The Dancing Bug, t-shirts, and a comic featuring Bolling's latest strips in response to Trump and the current political climate.b "Tom The Dancing Bug has been running in newspapers for 35 years. This is a direct look at its roots, proving it is as timely and sharp as ever," said Clover Press Publisher Hank Kanalz. "Ruben's fluid style provides the right delivery mechanism for his chosen send-up du jour."

• "Each week Ruben Bolling takes an unassuming little blank white rectangle and fills it up with clever cartoonery, sneaky commentary, and more political laughs than you can shake a stick at. All hail Tom the Dancing Bug!" — Matt Groening
• "Behold the wondrous, whimsical, witty world that is Tom the Dancing Bug! If you're someone who's not a fan of potent political humor with an incisive absurdist twist that's not only consistently funny, but downright therapeutic for an ailing world, I suggest you avoid this book like the plague. For everyone else, it's a MUST-READ!" — Mark Hamill
• "Delve into the dementia, the dread, and the delightfulness of Tom the Dancing Bug – it's history through the lens of a self-loathing insomniac. In a way, it's all of us." — Patton Oswalt
• "God bless Tom the Dancing Bug! Funny, succinct, and highly original, Ruben Bolling is able to make sense from the chaos and tragedy of America's political nightmares and make you laugh while doing it. An increasingly rare and more difficult feat these extra bleak days. This is worth your time and money. Do it!" — David Cross
• "The fact that Tom the bug can keep dancing in this day and age is a testament to Ruben Bolling's skills as a cartoonist!" — Seth Meyers
• "This fine collection of work by Mr. Bolling provides ample evidence as to why he is unanimously considered one of the greatest cartoonists in the known universe. How he would rank in that other part of the universe is, of course, a matter that's still being hotly debated within the scientific community." — "Weird Al" Yankovic

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