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Ruben Bolling

 

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Ruben Bolling



 
 
Ruben Bolling is a pseudonym
Pseudonym

A pseudonym, , is a fictitious alternative to a person's legal name. In some cases, pseudonyms are adopted because it is part of a cultural or organizational tradition, as in the case of Religious names used by members of some religious orders and "cadre names" used by Communist party leaders such as Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin....
 for Ken Fisher, a cartoonist
Cartoonist

A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. Traditionally much of this work was, and still is, humorous, and is intended primarily for entertainment purposes....
, the author of Tom the Dancing Bug
Tom the Dancing Bug

Tom the Dancing Bug is a weekly comic strip by Ruben Bolling which presents critical commentary on modern life, current events, and conventional wisdom and clich?s....
.

Biography
Bolling, who has no formal art training, read many comics when he was a child, and sometimes features their styles in his work. However, he didn't aspire to be a full-time cartoonist; instead he studied economics as an undergraduate at Tufts University
Tufts University

Tufts University is a private research university in Medford, Massachusetts/Somerville, Massachusetts, near Boston, Massachusetts, United States....
 and later attended Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, it is the United States' oldest law school in continuous operation....
. It was at Harvard in the mid-'80s that Bolling came up with the idea for "Tom the Dancing Bug" and his pseudonym, "Ruben Bolling".

After graduation he practiced law for several years before resigning to pursue comic writing full-time.






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Encyclopedia


Ruben Bolling is a pseudonym
Pseudonym

A pseudonym, , is a fictitious alternative to a person's legal name. In some cases, pseudonyms are adopted because it is part of a cultural or organizational tradition, as in the case of Religious names used by members of some religious orders and "cadre names" used by Communist party leaders such as Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin....
 for Ken Fisher, a cartoonist
Cartoonist

A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. Traditionally much of this work was, and still is, humorous, and is intended primarily for entertainment purposes....
, the author of Tom the Dancing Bug
Tom the Dancing Bug

Tom the Dancing Bug is a weekly comic strip by Ruben Bolling which presents critical commentary on modern life, current events, and conventional wisdom and clich?s....
.

Biography


Bolling, who has no formal art training, read many comics when he was a child, and sometimes features their styles in his work. However, he didn't aspire to be a full-time cartoonist; instead he studied economics as an undergraduate at Tufts University
Tufts University

Tufts University is a private research university in Medford, Massachusetts/Somerville, Massachusetts, near Boston, Massachusetts, United States....
 and later attended Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, it is the United States' oldest law school in continuous operation....
. It was at Harvard in the mid-'80s that Bolling came up with the idea for "Tom the Dancing Bug" and his pseudonym, "Ruben Bolling".

After graduation he practiced law for several years before resigning to pursue comic writing full-time. When that didn't work out, comic writing became a side interest and Bolling became a full time bank employee.

He currently lives and works in New York, and his urbane sensibilities suggest progressive
Progressivism

The term progressive has varying meanings in different countries.In some countries, the word refers to left-wing politics. For instance, in the United States, the term progressive emerged in the late 19th century into the 20th century in reference to a more general response to the vast changes brought by industrialization: an alternativ...
 political inclinations. His pieces demonstrate concern about the power of large corporations and satirize the way government has been corrupted by money. His work often concerns war, arguing that the government manipulates the media to propagate false versions of the events surrounding the Iraq war.

Many of his strips admit no political interpretation, instead featuring absurdist humor or parodying comic strip conventions. Bolling's lampoons of celebrity culture, such as in the parodic series of comic strips labeled "Funny, Funny, Celebs", can be scathing.

He is a member of Cartoonists With Attitude.

Books


Three book-form collections have been published:

  • 1992: Tom the Dancing Bug ISBN 0-06-096949-0
  • 1997: All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned From My Golf-Playing Cats ISBN 1-56163-183-3
  • 2004: Thrilling Tom the Dancing Bug Stories (over-sized treasury) ISBN 0-7407-4737-1


External links

  • (PDF
    Portable Document Format

    Portable Document Format is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document exchange. PDF is used for representing two-dimensional documents in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating system....
    )
  • (contains an interview)