Author: Ruben Bolling

This holiday season, you can give that special someone(s) a 2025 Gift Membership(s) to Tom the Dancing Bug’s INNER HIVE.

That’s right, you can give a loved one / friend / frenemy a membership to the INNER HIVE, and from the moment you sign them up (e.g., today?) and throughout 2025 they will receive the weekly INNER HIVE emails containing:

👉 that week’s Tom the Dancing Bug comic, at least a day before it’s published anywhere online; and

👉 exclusive commentary, extra comics, contests, giveaways, word-find puzzles, and advice for the lovelorn, juicy gossip, jokes and palindromes, etc.

👉 and all other benefits and privileges of membership conferred.

$59.99.  Simply sign up here, by entering the recipient’s name and the email address the INNER HIVE mailings should be sent to. Then click the “Buy Now” button.

Name of RECIPIENT

Email address of RECIPIENT

It is for you to inform the recipient of the gift.  The recipient will simply receive the next INNER HIVE email after you sign them up.  I do provide you with a spiffy and festive graphic announcing the gift that you can use.

*You can also use the above form to RENEW an existing gift membership.*

Alternatively, $77.00 annual and $7 monthly gift subscriptions through Substack can be purchased here. These annual subscriptions last for exactly one year from the time of sign-up, and recipients will receive the weekly Inner Hive emails, but also weekly Tom the Dancing Bug Review emails. (Note: the page calls it a “The Tom the Dancing Bug Review Subscription,” but because it is paid, it is also an Inner Hive subscription.)

Update 11/17: You can now give a gift membership of any number of months, up to a year, with multiple choices of tiers, on Patreon, here.

UPDATE 11/17: You can now give a gift membership of any amount of months up to a year on Patreon.

-Terms and Conditions apply. They always do.

-The $59.99 Gift Membership offer here is for an Inner Hive membership through MailChimp from time of sign-up through 12/31/25.  Payment is for starting the membership.  Recipient may cancel at any time (there’s no accounting for taste). These $59.99 Gift Memberships DO NOT AUTOMATICALLY RENEW; they will terminate on 12/31/25 without any action on your or the recipient’s part.

More info on the INNER HIVE is here.

IT’S THE GIFT THAT KEEPS GIVING, EVERY DING-DONG WEEK, UNTIL IT STOPS.

Thank you, and have a Merry/Happy Everything.

Rb

For any questions, you can contact me at tomdbug at gmail dot com

I’ll be making an appearance at the New York Comic Con, on Thursday, October 17, from 11am to 1pm, signing and selling Tom the Dancing Bug books, giving out fist bumps, and answering the tough questions. The crowd will be the biggest ever, believe me.

The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug volumes (signed and [briefly] sketched in front of your astonished eyes) will be only $28 (venmo) or $25 (cash).  While supplies last (I can only bring so many). I also might bring some rarities. 

OFFICE HOURS: I’m also planning on spending an hour or so afterwards, 1:45-2:45pm, at the Landmark Tavern (six minute walk from the convention at 626 11th Ave.), in case anybody who is in NYC but doesn’t have a ticket to the convention (or anybody who does) wants to join me for a drink and more book-selling (if supplies have lasted), conversation, high-fives, signing body parts, extra credit assignments, and whatever works. I’ll be they guy wearing a yellow baseball hat.

Please do check back at this space for any updates, and any day-of updates will be made on my BlueSky account.

Thanks to my friends at Boing Boing for this great post about my new book, “It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug!”

The New Yorker just published a really nice profile about me and Tom the Dancing Bug. Check it out here.

I would add that while the comic strip does maintain a “robust Patreon community called the Inner Hive,” Patreon.com is only one of four ways to join Inner Hive!

Thanks to Sarah Larson, whom it was such a pleasure to talk with, and The New Yorker!

I’m proud to announce the newest volume in The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug book program!

Volume 8 is IT’S THE GREAT STORM, TOM THE DANCING BUG!, and I’m now taking orders for signed/sketched/swagged copies of this book.

These will be signed, etc. and sent out in the order of purchase, so buy yours today! And if you buy a signed/sketched/swagged copy of Great Storm, you can also buy another book from the Tom the Dancing Bug collection , also signed/sketched/swagged for as little as ten extra bucks! (See info for Great Storm Combos, below.)

From Clover Press’s promotional copy for the book:

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!”

*****

UPDATE: But don’t take their word for it. Here is a New Yorker article about the book:

*****

You can purchase the book in bookstores, at online retailers like Amazon, and from the publisher, Cover Press.

But you can also purchase the book directly from me, SIGNED, SKETCHED, and SWAGGED. Order from me, 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

Here is the back cover of It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug!

You can purchase just the one copy of It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug (signed/sketched and swagged) in the form below, but if you want to take advantage of one of the GREAT STORM COMBOS, keep scrolling down and choose the combo you’d like. The second book you choose to order (in addition to It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug!) will also be signed/personalized(if requested)/dated, but will not get a full hand-drawn illustration in it (but it might just get a quick little sketch).

For all orders on this post:

• -> If you would like the book(s) signed “to” a particular name (your name, the name of a gift recipient, etc.), type that name in the field below.  If not, you can leave that field blank.  The book will still be signed and get the hand-drawn illustration.
• -> If you are a member of the Inner Hive, enter the email address you use for that membership in the indicated field.  If you are not, no problem, you can leave that field blank.

Signed/Sketched/Swagged It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug! only = 69.96, cheap, +$5 shipping

This offer is for U.S. deliveries only ($5 is added for Media Mail / handling). But I welcome orders for single books outside the U.S.  For deliveries of single books outside the U.S., please contact teamdancingbug at gmail dot com for international shipping prices.

To buy ONLY It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug:

$69.96, plus $5 shipping

Name I'd like book signed to

Inner Hive address (if any)

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IT’S THE GREAT STORM COMBOS!

These offers are for U.S. deliveries only ($8 is added for Media Mail / handling). I apologize to my valued readers outside the U.S., but I cannot accept orders to be shipped outside the U.S. for combos due to prohibitive international shipping rates on larger packages.

Again, for all these combos, you get the extra book, and it will be signed/personalized(if requested)/dated, but it will not have a full hand-drawn illustration in it.

Volume 8, It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug! (2020-2023) AND Volume 3, On the Trail of Tom the Dancing Bug (1999-2002)

$89.99, plus $8 shipping

Name I'd like books signed to

Inner Hive address (if any)

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Volume 8, It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug! (2020-2023) AND Volume 4, Tom the Dancing Bug: All-Mighty Comics (2003-2006)

$89.98, plus $8 shipping

Name I'd like books signed to

Inner Hive address (if any)

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Volume 8, It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug! (2020-2023) AND Volume 5, Tom the Dancing Bug: Eat the Poor (2007-2011)

$79.99, plus $8 shipping

Name I'd like books signed to

Inner Hive address (if any)

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Volume 8, It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug! (2020-2023) AND Volume 6, Tom the Dancing Bug Awakens (2012-2015)

$79.98, plus $8 shipping

Name I'd like books signed to

Inner Hive address (if any)

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Volume 8, It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug! (2020-2023) AND Volume 7, Tom the Dancing Bug: Into the Trumpverse (2016-2019)

$99.99, plus $8 shipping

Name I'd like books signed to

Inner Hive address (if any)

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The Tom the Dancing Bug Six-Pack: Volumes 3-8 of the Complete Tom the Dancing Bug! (Note: again, all volumes signed, bug only Volume 8, It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug, will have the full hand-drawn illustration.)

$219.99, plus $15 shipping

Name I'd like books signed to

Inner Hive address (if any)

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For more options, including the individual purchase of Volumes 2-7 with hand-drawn illustrations in each of these volumes, plus for information on how to buy two other books, The Super-Fun-Pak Comix Reader and Tom the Dancing Bug, Without the Bad Ones, go to the Tom the Dancing Bug store.

(Also at the store is a package of all eight books, the Eight is Enough of Tom the Dancing Bug package.)

Hey, I was delighted to be a guest on David Cross’s great podcast “Senses Working Overtime,” talking about everything except the five senses. So fun.

I hope the Apple podcast servers can handle the increase in traffic.

Available wherever podcasts are cast. (Apple podcasts here, YouTube here.)

Sorry for the Variety-style headline. I got carried away.

But yes, Tom the Dancing Bug was nominated for a National Cartoonists Society Award for Editorial Cartoons.

The winner will be announced at the Reuben Awards ceremony / dinner on August 23 in San Diego.

For a limited time, I’m offering The Tom the Dancing Bug Reader, a pdf sampler of 22 Tom the Dancing Bug comics from 2003-2024, for FREE. For anyone and everyone.

To get your pdf, simply enter your email address in the form below, press the Contact Us button, and you’ll get download instructions in a while. (The Name and Message fields are not necessary.)

FORM DELETED; OFFER EXPIRED.

You will also be enrolled to get the Tom the Dancing Bug Review newsletter, a (free) weekly email by, of, and about all things Tom the Dancing Bug.

E-Z, fun, and free!

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APRIL 19 UPDATE: I’ve retired the form for obtaining the free Tom the Dancing Bug Reader pdf.

You can still get the free pdf by going to this week’s Tom the Dancing Bug Review newsletter (4/19/24) and getting the pdf link, which should be good until April 25. (Subscribe to the newsletter to find out about other offers in the future!)

After that, The Tom the Dancing Bug Reader will only be available in the Tom the Dancing Bug shop ($5), along with other Tom the Dancing Bug pdf books available for purchase.

Of course, for Tom the Dancing Bug physical books, go the Tom the Dancing Bug Store, and peruse The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug collection.

What is the Inner Hive?  It’s a subscription service. It’s a secret society. It’s a ragtag group of ne’er-do-wells with ideas that are so crazy, they just might work.

It’s the team that literally makes it possible for Tom the Dancing Bug to exist in this world.

And we want YOU as a member!  Every week, you’ll get an email with that week’s Tom the Dancing Bug AT LEAST A DAY BEFORE IT’S PUBLISHED ANYWHERE ONLINE.  Plus exclusive commentary, insights, process pics, extra comics, jokes, puzzles, recipes, and all benefits accruing.

How can you join?  Let me count the ways:

1. You can join on Patreon, now the most popular platform for new Inner Hivers, offering not only emails but also a website on which you can read the posts.  Plus, the Patreon option offers different levels of membership, with varying benefits.  (Monthly automatic recurring payments.)
2.  You can join at MailChimp/CampaignZee, the platform on which the Inner Hive was first launched, way back in 2012, offering weekly emails only (no website option). (Semi-annual automatic recurring payments.)
3.  You can join on Substack, the latest platform to join the Inner Hive family.  (Monthly automatic recurring payments.)
4.  You can avoid automatic recurring payments by joining on a two-year non-recurring membership, directly from me.

No matter how you join, you’ll earn the adoration of a grateful nation and world.

(If you don’t want to join the Inner Hive, but want to make a grant to the Tom the Dancing Bug enterprise, you can become of Friend of Tom the Dancing Bug by making a payment of any size here. You will get a nifty electronic Thank You message.)

Thank you for reading this message, and I hope to see you on the team.
–Ruben Bolling