American cartoonist
Ruben Bolling
|
---|
Ruben Bolling speaks at a Borders Books in Washington DC, July 7, 2007.
|
Born
| Kenneth Fisher
1963 (age 60–61)
New Jersey
, U.S.
[1]
|
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Nationality
| American
|
---|
Area(s)
| Cartoonist
|
---|
Pseudonym(s)
| Ruben Bolling
|
---|
Notable works
| Tom the Dancing Bug
|
---|
Awards
| Association of Alternative Newsweeklies
, Best Cartoon, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2008,
[2]
2009
[3]
Society of Professional Journalists
Award for Editorial Cartooning, 2010
[4]
Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning
, 2017
[5]
National Cartoonists Society
Reuben Award, 2017
[6]
and 2022
[7]
Robert F. Kennedy Book & Journalism Awards, Best Cartoon, 2018
[8]
Berryman Award for Editorial Cartoons from
National Press Foundation
, 2021
[9]
|
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Children
| 3
|
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https://tomdbug.wpcomstaging.com/
|
Ruben Bolling
(born c. 1963
[10]
in
New Jersey
) is a
pseudonym
for
Ken Fisher
, an American
cartoonist
, the author of
Tom the Dancing Bug
. His work started out apolitical, instead featuring
absurdist
humor, parodying comic strip conventions, or critiquing
celebrity culture
. He came to increasingly satirize conservative politics after the
September 11 attacks
and
Iraq war
in the early 2000s.
[1]
This trend strengthened with the
Donald Trump
presidency and right-wing populism from 2017-2020,
[11]
his critiques of which earned him several cartooning awards.
[5]
[6]
Career
[
edit
]
Fisher, who has no formal art training, read many comics when he was a child (his biggest influence being
Garry Trudeau
's
Doonesbury
),
[10]
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
and later attended
Harvard Law School
(graduating in 1987).
[10]
It was at Harvard in the mid-1980s that Fisher came up with the idea for "Tom the Dancing Bug" and his pseudonym,
Ruben Bolling
(which is a melding of the names of two favorite old-time baseball players,
Ruben Amaro
and
Frank Bolling
).
[1]
Tom the Dancing Bug originally ran in the
Harvard Law School Record
.
[10]
After graduation, Fisher practiced law for several years before resigning to pursue comics full-time. When that didn't work out, comic writing became a side interest and Fisher became a full-time employee at a
financial services
company.
[1]
[10]
Tom the Dancing Bug
was picked up for weekly syndication in 1997 by
Universal Press Syndicate
.
[10]
Fisher was working on building a full-time comics career, driven in part by a project, thus far never realized, with
New Line Cinema
to produce a movie about his character Harvey Richards, Esq., a "Lawyer for Children."
[12]
Newspapers that have published
Tom the Dancing Bug
include
The Washington Post
,
The Village Voice
, and
Los Angeles Times
.
[10]
At its peak,
Tom the Dancing Bug
was syndicated in print in over 100 newspapers, but is now published almost entirely online.
[13]
In 2012, Fisher launched a subscription service, the Inner Hive,
[14]
which he credits with keeping the comic going amid
declines in print newspapers
.
[11]
A
Super Fun-Pak Comix
installment from 2014, entitled
The Comic Strip That Has A Finale Every Day
, parodied farewell installments from long-running comic strips. This then became an
ongoing feature
on the gocomics.com site under the pseudonym John "Scully" Scully, releasing the same comic every day.
In 2015, Fisher published the first in a series of children's books,
The EMU Club Adventures
.
[15]
Awards
[
edit
]
Fisher is a five-time winner of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Award for Best Cartoon, for 2002, 2003, 2007, 2008,
[2]
and 2009.
[3]
In 2010, he received the
Society of Professional Journalists
award for Editorial Cartooning for a non-daily publication.
[4]
Fisher won numerous awards for his satirical criticism of the
Donald Trump
presidency. He was the winner of the 2017
Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning
[5]
based on a selection of 15 Trump-themed
Tom the Dancing Bug
cartoons. In 2017, he won a 2017 Silver Reuben Award from the
National Cartoonists Society
[6]
for "Donald and John," a series in the style of
Calvin and Hobbes
that cast
Donald Trump
as a childish Calvin-like figure and
Trump alter-ego John Barron
as Trump's "imaginary publicist" in place of Hobbes.
He was awarded a prize for best cartoon in the 2018
Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
[8]
and in 2019 and 2021 he was a finalist in the Editorial Cartooning category for the
Pulitzer Prize
.
[16]
[17]
His "mordant wit, superior artwork and inventive delivery" won him the 2021 Berryman Award for Editorial Cartoons from the
National Press Foundation
.
[9]
Bolling won the
National Cartoonists Society
's Reuben Award for Editorial Cartoons in 2022 and was nominated again in 2023.
[7]
[18]
Personal life
[
edit
]
Fisher is married to a lawyer; they have three children.
[10]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
Bolonik, Kera (Spring 2016).
"The World According to Ruben Bolling"
.
Tufts Magazine
. Retrieved
2021-03-20
.
.
- ^
a
b
Gardner, Alan.
Ruben Bolling Wins Best Cartoon Award from AAN
. The Daily Cartoonist (June 10, 2008)
- ^
a
b
Xerexes, Xavier.
Onward Into the Webcomics Breach
. Comix Talk (July 1, 2009)
- ^
a
b
Announcing winners of the 2010 Sigma Delta Chi Awards for journalism
(May 10, 2011)
- ^
a
b
c
2017 Prize Winner
. Herb Block Foundation (March 19, 2021)
- ^
a
b
c
71st Annual Reuben Award Winners Announced!
National Cartoonists Society (May 27, 2017)
- ^
a
b
The Reuben Awards Are Back! Here Are This Year's Winners
. GoComics (September 19, 2022)
- ^
a
b
FULL LIST: 2018 Robert F. Kennedy Book & Journalism Award Winners
(May 3, 2018)
- ^
a
b
Ruben Bolling wins 2021 Berryman Cartoonist Award
(November 1, 2021)
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
Elder, Robert K. (May 4, 2004).
"Being Ruben Bolling: An alter ego and a day job let Ken Fisher draw comics precisely as he pleases"
.
Chicago Tribune
. Retrieved
2021-03-20
.
- ^
a
b
Roth, Stephen (November 26, 2018).
"Politics Through the Compound Eyes of 'Tom the Dancing Bug"
.
GoComics
. Retrieved
2021-03-20
.
- ^
"Bolling interview"
.
Deconstructing Comics
(Podcast). No. #228. April 19, 2010
. Retrieved
2021-03-20
.
- ^
@RubenBolling (March 21, 2021).
"This is sadly true. Tom the Dancing Bug used to be in well over 100 print newspapers, and for a while in the NYT ab…"
(
Tweet
) – via
Twitter
.
- ^
Bolling, Reuben (May 9, 2012).
"Come on and join Tom the Dancing Bug's INNER HIVE!"
.
Boing Boing
. Retrieved
2021-03-20
.
- ^
Bolling, Reuben (April 7, 2015).
"Book: Alien Invasion In My Backyard"
.
Boing Boing
. Retrieved
2021-03-20
.
- ^
"Finalist in editorial cartooning: Ken Fisher, drawing as Ruben Bolling, freelancer"
.
Pulitzer Prize
. 2019
. Retrieved
2021-03-20
.
- ^
"Finalist: Ken Fisher, drawing as Ruben Bolling, for "Tom the Dancing Bug," Andrews McMeel Syndicate"
.
Pulitzer Prize
. 2021
. Retrieved
2021-06-13
.
- ^
Colleen Doran, Alex Ross, Sarah Andersen among this year’s NCS divisional nominees
. Smash Pages (June 7, 2023)
External links
[
edit
]