Busy, busy in DC
and Lester the Jester in Riyadh
Hello, everyone. This week’s Tom the Dancing Bug Review is jam-packed, so let’s get started!
This week’s comic shows what a Busy, Busy Day in Washington, DC looks like.
Read this week’s Tom the Dancing Bug on GoComics HERE.
Read this week’s Tom the Dancing Bug on BoingBoing HERE.
Read this week’s Tom the Dancing Bug on DailyKos HERE.
Read this week’s Tom the Dancing Bug on The Contrarian HERE.
Brought to you by the Inner Hive, including longtime member Kyle B. and new member Amitha Knight.
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The Tom the Dancing Bug Review welcomes its first advertiser, and it’s one you can believe in. LifeLogic offers schools various lessons that can teach students about actual life skills. Things that are important for life — like how to write a check, what is insurance, how to check a car’s oil — but that schools, and usually not even parents, ever teach kids.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
Go ahead, click the image — and more information about LifeLogic can be found below.
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It might go something like this…
When I did the “Strike Force Five” comic last week, I playfully made Jimmy Fallon the member of the team who exasperated the others by doing corny impressions while they were using their satire-weapons to battle “Trumapctus.”
Well this week he gave an interview, and I hate to say I told you so, but…
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Funny Times
Tom the Dancing Bug’s longest-standing client, The Funny Times, is launching a new podcast. This independent print publication is celebrating its 40th (!) anniversary, all that time championing the work of cartoonists and printing hundreds of cartoons every month - including Tom the Dancing Bug. They tell me that the podcast will feature conversations with the Funny Times team, as well as contributors and readers. Listen here or on Spotify, and hopefully other podcast platforms as well.
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This week’s Classic Tom the Dancing Bug (published on GoComics yesterday) features Lucky Ducky, in “LUCKY LOOPHOLES” (from 2016).
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And the GoComics Super-Fun-Pak Comix page has recently featured comics from this installment from 2024…
I regret to inform you that Lester the Jester accepted an invitation to perform at the Riyadh Comedy Festival.
Here are some more recently posted Super-Fun-Pak Comix, also from 2024.
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Here Today, Tom Tomorrow
Hey, my pal Tom Tomorrow beat me to the Kickstarter punch! Clover Press is about to launch a Kickstarter for Volumes 1 and 2 of The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug Library, but Mr. Tomorrow just launched his own for his brand new book.
You can buy the book, filled with Tom’s superb comics, and I believe available exclusively through this Kickstarter campaign, here.
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Raise the Rufe
And my pal Josh Lieb, an incredibly accomplished television comedy writer and producer, noted in his great newsletter, “Josh Lieb Can’t Draw” on Wednesday that a 1946 issue of Popular Comics included a text story about an alcoholic hobo named… Rufe Bolling.
I guess I’d kept ol’ Uncle Rufe hidden long enough. The secret’s out.
I’m not posting the first page of this story, because it reveals Uncle Rufe to be far worse than boozy and indolent.
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Here is another item I wrote for Boing Boing recently:
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And that’s it!
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Rb
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
Learn more at LifeLogic.org
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COMING: TWO NEW TOM THE DANCING BUG BOOKS!
YOU can sign up now for the Kickstarter launch page, and you’ll be informed when the Kickstarter campaign goes live, with the opportunity to participate and purchase these books, and much more.
VOLUME 1 OF THE COMPLETE TOM THE DANCING BUG LIBRARY
Tom the Dancing Bug: Secret Origins, collecting the years 1990-1994
and
VOLUME 2 OF THE COMPLETE TOM THE DANCING BUG LIBRARY
Sex, Tom the Dancing Bug, & Rock ‘n’ Roll, collecting the years 1995-1998
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YOU CAN STILL ORDER
IT’S THE GREAT STORM, TOM THE DANCING BUG!
AND THE OTHER RELEASED VOLUMES OF THE COMPLETE TOM THE DANCING BUG LIBRARY
Volume 3, On the Trail of Tom the Dancing Bug (1999-2002), published June 2023
Volume 4, Tom the Dancing Bug: All-Mighty Comics (2003-2006), published October 2022.
Volume 5, Tom the Dancing Bug: Eat the Poor (2007-2011), published June 2022.
Volume 6, Tom the Dancing Bug Awakens (2012-2015), published December 2021.
Volume 7, Tom the Dancing Bug: Into the Trumpverse (2016-2019), published August 2020.
Volume 8, “It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug!” (2020-2023), published July 2024
Clover Press’s promotional copy for the latest volume, Volume 8: “It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug!”:
Clover Press’s Complete Tom the Dancing Bug program bursts forward with the eighth chronological volume, covering all of the most recent installments of the comic strip, a two-time Pulitzer Prize Finalist, from 2020-2023.
It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug! includes Bolling’s award-winning work covering the last year of the Trump presidency and the post-term MAGA insanity. All the favorite Tom the Dancing Bug characters try to make sense of the dark times of the early 2020s, including: the Smythe family of Chagrin Falls; Lucky Ducky, the poor little duck who’s rich in luck; and Billy Dare, boy adventurer. Also in the volume is Bolling’s comic contribution to “Weird Al” Yankovic’s hit graphic novel, The Illustrated Al.
Tom the Dancing Bug is the wildly popular, groundbreaking comic strip that has won multiple awards, including the Herblock Prize, the Berryman Award, and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. Mark Hamill called it “wondrous, whimsical, and witty,” and Seth Meyers recently wrote, “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!”
Buy your SIGNED/SKETCHED/SWAGGED copy of It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug, and you get:
Your copy of IT’S THE GREAT STORM, TOM THE DANCING BUG! signed/dated by me, and personalized if requested;
Your copy of IT’S THE GREAT STORM, TOM THE DANCING BUG! will have an illustration hand-drawn by me in it
A special authenticated (i.e. signed) It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug! bookmark;
A special It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug sticker (3.25″ x 4″)
An exclusive pdf booklet, The It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug, “Artist’s” Edition,
The option of purchasing another book from The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug Collection for only and extra $10, $20 or $30 (depending on volume), if you choose one of the GREAT STORM COMBOS
The 2024 Tom the Dancing Bug Annual pdf, containing every comic from the 2024, is available here.
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Confuse your friends. Perplex your neighbors. Confound yourself. Various colors, styles, sizes available.
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The Tom the Dancing Bug Review. Copyright 2025 Ruben Bolling.