Squinting away the murder
Cognitive dissonance at work
The Tom the Dancing Bug Review
Welcome to the Tom the Dancing Bug Review.
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Hello, Reviewers!
This week’s comic features the newest Tom the Dancing Bug characters sweeping and destroying the nation, The Magas! 👇
Read this week’s Tom the Dancing Bug on GoComics HERE.
Read this week’s Tom the Dancing Bug on Boing Boing HERE.
Read this week’s Tom the Dancing Bug on Daily Kos HERE.
Read this week’s Tom the Dancing Bug on The Contrarian HERE.
Brought to you by the Inner Hive, including longtime member Franklin 89 and new member bill.
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Here is last week’s comic, Percival Dunwoody, Idiot Time-Traveler from 1909:
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This week’s Classic Tom the Dancing Bug (published on GoComics yesterday) is “NEWS OF THE TIMES - Trump: Protect Schools by Arming the Crisis Actors” (from 2018).
This is from 2018, but Republicans are still irrationally insisting that anything that challenges their addled worldview must be the result of some kind of left-wing gloablist phony conspiracy — either crisis actors are faking school shootings, or the protesters (pastors, nurses, comic book store owners, teachers, etc.) in Minnesota are paid operatives.
I think I’ve only mentioned George Soros twice in the history of Tom the Dancing Bug, and by an odd coincidence the mentions are in this week’s new comic, and this Classic (which was queued up months ago).
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And the GoComics Super-Fun-Pak Comix page has recently featured comics from this installment (from 1999). In another odd coincidence, this installment happened to come up in a feature of this week’s Inner Hive Dispatch.
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I’ve been writing some items for the website Boing Boing, and here are some of my recent posts:
Hotels love their new bathrooms with peekaboo doors… or no doors
When the Colombian army sent a secret message to prisoners by creating a hit pop song
Turning his toddler daughter’s stories into hauntingly beautiful songs
But wait! There are more Boing Boing posts!
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Friends, here are just a few of the organizations we can support to help immigrants and protesters in Minnesota, from Mpls St. Paul Magazine:
Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee has continued its food card fundraiser to help get groceries and necessities to families forced into hiding, parents kept away from work and kids from school. You can donate here.
Community Aid Network is an excellent evergreen mutual aid organization—you can donate directly, or sign up to volunteer for food distribution and deliveries at Bethel Lutheran Church via the link here. Here’s the organization’s latest update on what help is most needed.
The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota runs an Immigrant Rapid Response Fund that, in the organization’s words, “ensures that resources move quickly, responsibly, and with community accountability to trusted organizations responding to immigration-related emergencies across Minnesota.” It’s a good general fund to donate to.
The Immigrant Law Center is offering legal support to countless people detained by ICE in Minnesota—you can donate here.
Neighbors in southwest Minneapolis and St. Paul’s West Side neighborhood are fundraising to support their neighbors with rental assistance, food delivery, healthcare access and services, transportation, and legal support services.
This is going to be a long and bloody fight, everybody. Stay strong.
Yours Indeed,
Rb
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The Complete TOM THE DANCING BUG Library!
Eight essential trade paperback volumes compiling the COMPLETE Tom the Dancing Bug ouvre!
Volume 1, Tom the Dancing Bug: Secret Origins (1990-1994), Kickstarted for 2026 (closed)
Volume 2, Sex, Tom the Dancing Bug, & Rock ‘n’ Roll (1995-1998), Kickstarted for 2026 (closed)
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 last 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 2025 Tom the Dancing Bug Annual PDF, containing every comic from 2025, 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
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The Tom the Dancing Bug Review. Copyright 2026 Ruben Bolling.