The Five Stages of MAGA Grief
It ain't just a river in Egypt
Welcome to the Tom the Dancing Bug Review.
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I hope to see you on the other side of the door…
Hello, foolish humans.
This week’s Tom the Dancing Bug Review includes a conversation between myself and cartoonist Bob Eckstein, below.
But first:
This week’s comic describes the FIVE STAGES OF MAGA SCANDAL GRIEF.
Read this week’s Tom the Dancing Bug on GoComics HERE.
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Thank you very much. I hope to see you on the other side of the door!
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THANK YOU to everyone who backed the Tom the Dancing Bug Kickstarter to order Volumes 1 and 2 of The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug Library.
The Kickstarter raised TWENTY TIMES its goal. I’m grateful and honored by the support and enthusiasm!
And I can’t wait to get these books into your hands.
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This week’s Classic Tom the Dancing Bug (published on GoComics yesterday) features Charley the Australopithecine, in “Sex and the Single Australopithecine (from 1993).
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And the GoComics Super-Fun-Pak Comix page has recently featured comics from this installment (from 1997).
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I’m now occasionally writing posts for Boing Boing. Here is an item I wrote recently:
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FUN FACT: Did you know that Tom the Dancing Bug t-shirts are currently on sale for only $12.50?
It’s true! Visit the Tom the Dancing Bug shop at Threadless.
Confuse your friends. Perplex your neighbors. Confound yourself. Various colors, styles, sizes available.
Here’s a conversation I had with the great cartoonist and writer Bob Eckstein that he ran in his newsletter The Bob. (Note, this ran on Wednesday, and the Kickstarter for the new Tom the Dancing Bug has now expired.)
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Ruben Bolling is the author of the weekly comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug. He is a two-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize (2018 and 2021) and won the Herblock Award in 2017. He’s also won a Berryman Award (2021), a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award (2018), and two National Cartoonists Society Awards (2017 and 2022).¹
Bob: I have followed you forever. How would you assess your work and the change in priorities?
Ruben: Oh, there’s been a big change in my cartooning from when I started in my 20s to now, 35 years later. And the change is very clearly shown in The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug collection of books that I’m now finalizing. My 1990s comics (in Volumes 1 and 2 of the collection) feature mostly general humor: silly, absurdist, observational, character-driven, social and pop culture satire. A shift started to happen in the 2000s when my comics slowly shifted more toward political satire. And starting in 2015, Tom the Dancing Bug comics (collected in Volumes 7 and 8) have been about 85% political/topical satire.
Bob: Were you formally trained?
Ruben: Yes, but not in art, cartooning, or writing. I was trained as a lawyer, and maintained jobs in law/finance for decades, while also doing my comic strip every single week (plus being a husband and father). I don’t know how I did it. For the past few years, I’ve thankfully been able to fully focus on Tom the Dancing Bug, because I’m positive I couldn’t do both anymore.
You now do so many things in addition to cartooning. Are you a great multi-tasker, dabbling in everything simultaneously, or do you focus on one project at a time?
Bob: I am always working on multiple projects at once because there are always work stoppages for production or legal reasons or waiting for something. It’s actually nice to switch it up. It’s perhaps what I like most about my work. It’s always something very different––whether working on a game, cartoon, book, script, whatever… I’m never bored. What do you like most about your work?
Ruben: When it’s done.
Ruben: How did you start as a gag cartoonist? Was that your career goal at the time, or was it one of many things you were pursuing?
Bob: I started as a humor writer and illustrator. I had a messy, late start. Skipped senior year of high school, not exposed to anything…
But I tried hard at everything. I’m paranoid of being poor again. It’s certainly one reason I’m a workaholic, who, according to my wife, I am. I have money issues, still, and harbor a resentment towards very rich people.
I bonded with cartoonist Sam Gross when I did my first book, The History of the Snowman. We were both from the South Bronx. He took me to the New Yorker weekly lunch for my birthday. I had not done single-panel cartoons yet. He dared me to return for the next lunch with a batch of cartoons. At that point he introduced me to Bob Mankoff, then the Cartoon Editor, and I sold my first gag cartoon. It was the first and last time it was easy.
Ruben: Wow, Sam Gross gave me my first professional gig in cartooning. My first submission ever, right out of school, was to National Lampoon, and he was the cartoon editor at the time. I sent in one comic, and he called me in to his office and basically yelled at me. He said, “There are three ideas in this comic. Go home, make this into three different comics, and I’ll buy all three.” And he did. On the outside, he was this gruff Bronx curmudgeon, but underneath that, one of the nicest, most supportive people I’ve ever met in comics.
Bob, I’m so interested in the fact that you grew up in New York City’s South Bronx projects. My parents grew up around the South Bronx, but in the forties when their neighborhood was solidly middle class. I know from visiting my grandparents when I was a kid, before they escaped to Queens, and from going to Yankee games, that that neighborhood was EXTREMELY ROUGH around the time we were growing up. How was your experience there?
Bob: I only grew up there half my childhood. The projects were like black and white TV…a cross between The Honeymooners and Good Times… and coincidentally, my father was a busdriver, and I was like J.J. Walker, the awkward artist in the family. My family moved to Long Island while I was in middle school. It was like a fancy country club in comparison. My childhood actually normalized how dangerous Pratt Institute really was. Anyone else would have thought it was crazy to choose that neighborhood to go to school, having been offered scholarships for art and tennis to Cooper Union and a handful of other places. But I went to school there when I was supposed to be in high school and I fell in love with the classes and teachers, who gave me recommendations to be accepted (I went for free on combined scholarships. I kind of did my part, going undefeated one year, 19-0, and chosen Athlete of the Year.). My creative writing teacher convinced me I should write humor for a living and after graduation, I was asked to join their faculty. Back then I taught Illustration and a Concepts class, which I did also at School of Visual Arts.
Ruben: You have been on the faculty of prestigious institutions of education.
Bob: Yes, it’s been an honor. Most recently, I taught writing at NYU but decided to stop. I love learning more than I love teaching.
Ruben: What have you learned about cartooning and writing by teaching it?
One can’t help but learn from students and I love learning. It’s impossible to encapsulate what I got out of that but will start with I learned how to teach, learned what makes people tick, and learned you feel alive as long as you are still learning yourself. So, every book is about something I’m passionate about.
Ruben: Your latest book is Inspired by Cats. I’m now a dog owner, but I had a cat when I was a kid. What’s a great thing about having a cat?
Bob: I’m a dog person. But I can appreciate now, after this book, the power cats have on people and even our greatest writers, who often prefer the company of their cat over humans. I learned they brought great comfort to them. For some, their pet is the only thing they feel they can count on.
I know your Substack is helping others get through these times. How aware are you of that? Has it helped you at all?
Ruben: Thank you, Bob. People do tell me that my comics help them in these tough times, and I’m greatly heartened by that, even if I find it hard to believe. I know I’m not changing a single mind, so entertaining and engaging those who agree with me is the absolute most I can aspire to.
I don’t think of my Substack (which I call The Inner Hive, and is also available on Patreon and MailChimp) as helping me get through these times. I rarely feel better after drawing a comic or writing to its readers about our political situation and feeling some ongoing obligation to keep up with all the horrors is a depressing burden. That said, there are times when thinking of a new way of looking at it can feel cathartic, and I do enjoy the days I draw comics in the styles of my heroes—like Jack Kirby or Charles Schulz or Bill Watterson or Richard Scarry—even if what I’m depicting is awful.
Bob: Is always keeping focused on your target, and his antics painful or fuel your creativity?
Ruben: I try not to focus on that target at all. But like the rest of the country, I can’t help myself. Following up on that last question, I do think that if my goal was to help people get through these times, the best thing I could is ignore him, and go back to doing comics about giant nap-taking aliens, australopithecines, a detective who dies, etc. (my 1990s characters). I know that what’s sorely lacking in my own media consumption is distraction. But… I can’t help myself. Trump and MAGA are what I’m thinking, worrying, and obsessing about, so it’s what I write/draw about.
Do you have any tricks to getting yourself to write funny things? I ask as someone who does not.
Bob: Staying playful, mentally. And block out distractions.
Ruben: You mentioned to me in passing that you just came back from a book event where they made all your books into cookies. I’ve been puzzled ever since—what on earth does that mean?
Bob: The bookstore hired a chef to make cookies out of my books. I still haven’t tried one. I don’t have the heart to bite into one of my books.
Ruben: So, what are you working on next?
Bob: Myself. I have a book, that’s an 1850 dairy graphic novel, a card game about writer’s block, and a script getting dusty. But first I have to work on myself, physically and mentally, so that’s my plan.
Before I forget, let me thank you for doing this and mention your Kickstarter for Volumes 1 and 2 of The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug Library, which you can pre-order the two new books collecting the first nine years of Tom the Dancing Bug comics. UPDATE NOTE: the Kickstarter expired yesterday
Ruben, you get the last word, and please don’t make it australopithecines or something I have to google…
Ruben: It’s so great talking with you, Bob. I’m a big admirer of your cartoons and newsletter.
If anyone is interested in those two upcoming Tom the Dancing Bug books, please act fast… the time to order them expires Thursday [tomorrow] night at midnight (ET).
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And that’s how it goes.
See you next week, friends. Have a Happy Thanksgiving, to those who give thanks.
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!”
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The Tom the Dancing Bug Review. Copyright 2025 Ruben Bolling.