Tom the Dancing Bug, Without the Bad Ones

Tom the Dancing Bug

by Ruben Bolling

The Very, Very, VERY* Best of Tom the Dancing Bug, 1990-2021

31 years in the making, this book collects the top, most popular, most talked-about, most important, most Tom-the-Dancing-Bug comics in Tom the Dancing Bug's history. Imagine the thrill of reading and owning the award-winning and award-losing comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug, distilled into one handsome tome containing only its scientifically determined very, very, VERY* best.

144 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2021

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of Ruben Bolling comics going back to 1990. The chronological format confirmed my feeling that the Trump era was a huge blow to political comics & political humor in general. Reductio ad absurdum & the absurd itself have been co-opted by the fascists & other enablers of Trump. Hyperbolizing such people is almost impossible. This is also why many of the most absurd Tom the Dancing Bug strips from the 90s & 2000s were almost prophetic of our moment now. I was sad that the collection didn’t include the “Everything’s Normal Now” comic from late 2001, or the “So You’ve Been Declared a Terrorist” comic from sometime in the 2010s. I’m glad the Super Fun Pak Comix are all collected in their own book. To me they’re kind of the heart of Tom the Dancing Bug comic. It would be fun to see collections of all of the other recurring comic formats (e.g. God-Man, Billy Dare, Harvey Richards Lawyer for Children, etc.), but I can see how it’s more in the spirit of Tom the Dancing Bug to mix & jumble up all of the different recurring features.

[Jdetrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are fun, but it was mostly worth it to see some of the older comics from the 90's and 00's, before politics completely became the focus of the strip (and I like his political strips, but it was a breath of fresh air to see some before that time).

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrific satire. Always a winner.