Pardon me?
Trump's war on drug trafficker convictions
Welcome to the Tom the Dancing Bug Review.
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Welcome to The Tom the Dancing Bug Review, good persons — both human and corporate.
In this week’s comic, News of the Times reports on Trump pardoning a boatload of narco traffickers.
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 long-time member Henry B. and new member Douglas Arthur.
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Null and the Void: 1995 World Tour T-Shirt
I just added a new t-shirt design to my Threadless Shop. It features Charley the Australopithecine from a 1995 multi-part storyline in which he became a rock star in a short-lived Scream Rock band called Null and The Void.
The story is included in Volume 2 of The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug Library: Sex, Tom the Dancing Bug, & Rock ‘n’ Roll. And the t-shirt uses the illustration from the cover of that book.
It comes in two styles, one for lighter t-shirt colors, one for very dark t-shirt colors.
Here is the t-shirt for lighter colors:
And here is the t-shirt for darker colors:
Various colors and styles for each type of shirt are available.
If you see someone wearing a Null and The Void t-shirt, you have my permission to ask them, “So, you’re a Null and The Void fan, huh? CAN YOU NAME ONE NULL AND THE VOID SONG???”
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This comic from August came to mind yesterday, and I posted it on social media. It’s a horror story about a monster and his monstrous followers, but it’s the twist ending that horrifies me every single day.
“Yeah, whatever.”
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This week’s Classic Tom the Dancing Bug (published on GoComics yesterday) is another News of the Times: Oregon Woman Gives Birth to Hindy Baby (1996).
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And the GoComics Super-Fun-Pak Comix page has recently featured comics from this installment (from 1998).
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I’m now occasionally writing posts for Boing Boing. Here are a couple of the items I wrote recently:
Can you really “one weird trick” your way to healthier bread consumption?
This physics professor transformed his country to 98% renewable energy in five years
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Have you ever wondered how you can help the endangered orangutans and their rainforest habitat? Good news: You can join me in supporting the Orangutan Foundation International.
That’s it for this week. Except to note that Monday was the fifth anniversary of the day we got Otis the Dog Wonder. Here’s the picture from the day we got him, originally posted in The Tom the Dancing Bug Review that week.
Have a great weekend, folks.
Yours Indeed,
Rb
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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.
The Tom the Dancing Bug shop at Threadless is growing.
Confuse your friends. Perplex your neighbors. Confound yourself. Various colors, styles, sizes available.
In case you are interested:
Here is the official Tom the Dancing Bug webpage: tomthedancingbug.com
Please do join me on:
Bluesky (@rubenbolling.bsky.social)
Threads (@rubenbolling)
Instagram (@rubenbolling)
Facebook (facebook.com/rubenbolling)
Mastodon (@rubenbolling@mastodon.social)
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Reddit (u/tomthedancingbug)
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My email address is tomdbug at gmail dot com
Please do not send me any comments, messages, chat invitations, DMs etc. on Substack: I will not see them. Instead, simply use my email address above. Much easier and better, right?
The Tom the Dancing Bug Review. Copyright 2025 Ruben Bolling.





















