Volumes 1 and 2 of The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug have Kickstarted!

UPDATE 11/21: THANK YOU to every one who backed this Kickstarter and made it such a success. We raised TWENTY TIMES the Kickstarter’s goal, and with all these pre-orders in our arms, we are moving to the printing process to get these books in your hands!

As always, you guys have shown why Tom the Dancing Bug readers are the best group of people who have ever walked the face of this planet.

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Volumes 3 through 8 of the Complete Tom the Dancing Bug have been published, but as of today, you can finally pre-order Volumes 1 and 2. These volumes will make The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug… complete!

The volumes are published by Clover Press, and can be pre-ordered only through a limited-time Kickstarter, starting TODAY (10/28)!

The window to get these books closes November 20, 9pm PT.

👉 👉 CLICK HERE <<offer expired>> to get information and/or pre-order Volumes 1 and 2 on Kickstarter!

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL! ACT NOW, and you could get this new comic book with your Kickstarter order!

TRUMP YOU! will be a 24-page comic book (not a trade paperback) containing a selection of Trump-related Tom the Dancing Bug comics from 2024 and 2025. The Kickstarter also offers many other bonus items!

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About Volumes 1 and 2:

This volume compiles the weird and wild beginning of Tom the Dancing Bug, in which new characters and formats kept percolating up, including: Harvey Richards, Lawyer for Children; Max & Doug; Charley the Australopithecine; Games Louis Plays; and Bob.  The very first months were bizarre and experimental, including comics from various abandoned never-before-seen projects.  Witness the comic strip coalesce, by the end of the first year, into something more consistently resembling the award-winning Tom the Dancing Bug that has run for 35 years.  Also included is the 1991 Harvey Richards comic that ran in National Lampoon magazine.

This volume resumes the adventures and misadventures of the characters introduced in the early ‘90s, and continues to add new ones, such as Sam Roland, The Detective Who Dies; and God-Man, The Omnipotent Superhero.  It also includes two multi-part stories featuring Charley the Australopithecine: “Monkey Business;” and the Scream-Rock epic “Null and the Void.”  Also in the volume is the celebrated expansion of the “News of the Times” format and the launch of “Super-Fun-Pak Comix.”

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UPDATES:

Here is some of the press the two new books have generated:

Boing Boing:

• Bleeding Cool – Ruben Bolling’s Trump You! Strips Join Tom The Dancing Bug Kickstarter
• IGN – Tom the Dancing Bug: The Beloved Surrealist Comic Strip Gets a New Book Collection
• The Comics Beat – Exclusive Preview: TOM THE DANCING BUG collected editions hit Kickstarter
• ComicBuzz Chats with Ruben Bolling
• Comic Book Club – Tom The Dancing Bug’ Creator Ruben Bolling On His New Kickstarter Collections, And The Legacy Of Alt-Weeklies
• Smash Pages – Clover Press completes their ‘Tom the Dancing Bug’ collection with two new volumes
• Geek Vibes Nation Interview: Ruben Bolling Discusses Clover Press’ Final Two Tom The Dancing Bug Volumes
• ‘Tom the Dancing Bug’ Creator Ruben Bolling: The Conskipper Interview
• Fanbase Press Interviews Ruben Bolling on the Kickstarter Campaign Launch for the ‘Tom the Dancing Bug’ Collected Volumes with Clover Press
• ComicCon – Interviewing Ruben Bolling About The ‘Tom The Dancing Bug’ Kickstarter
• Vol 1. Brooklyn – A NEW COLLECTION REVISITS THE FIRST DECADE OF “TOM THE DANCING BUG”
• Freak Sugar – INTERVIEW: RUBEN BOLLING ON THE COMEDY & COMMENTARY OF TOM THE DANCING BUG
• The Daily Cartoonist – Secret Origins of a Dancing Bug

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More samples from the upcoming Volumes 1 and 2 than you can shake a stick at!

Assuming you have limits to your stick shaking capabilities…

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Part one of the Null and The Void Saga:

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Complete your Complete Tom the Dancing Bug Library!

Volumes 3-8, compiling every Tom the Dancing Bug comic from 1999-2023, can be purchased as part of this Kickstarter campaign, or at your local bookstore or online retailer, or from Clover Press, or signed and sketched directly from me.

Okay, if you were thinking of signing up for the Inner Hive, doing it now would do some extra good.

From now (Tuesday, 9/16/25, 4pm ET) until midnight, the night of 10/3/25 (ET), if you sign up for any annual Inner Hive membership, I’ll donate $33* to Immigration Law & Justice New York. (In addition to my own personal, non-Inner Hive related donation.)

“We advocate for and provide free or low-cost legal services to people of every race, nationality, religion, age, gender, and sexual orientation who have come to the United States seeking freedom, safety, and opportunity.”

👉 You can purchase an annual membership on Patreon here (toggle the “Pay annually” switch).

👉 You can purchase an annual membership on Substack here. (Hit the Subscribe button, and choose a paid annual membership).

Members of the Inner Hive get each week’s Tom the Dancing Bug comic emailed to them at least a day before it’s published, plus extra comics, commentary, exclusive info, etc.

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*$33 (comes to $2.79 per month) is the base price of an annual Inner Hive membership on Patreon.

(If you want to avoid automatic recurring payments and third-party corporate subscriptions, you can join the Inner Hive on a two-year non-recurring membership, directly from me. Joining on this type of membership will also trigger the donation.

For the past five years, Clover Press and I have been working on the multi-volume COMPLETE TOM THE DANCING BUG book program.  There were eight books planned, each book containing every single Tom the Dancing Bug comic published over a four or five year span.  And we worked sort of backwards, starting with Volume 7, covering the years 2016-2019, working our way back to Volume 3 (1999-2002), and then catching up last year with Volume 8 (2020-2023).

• Volume 7, Tom the Dancing Bug: Into the Trumpverse (2016-2019), published August 2020.
• Volume 6, Tom the Dancing Bug Awakens (2012-2015), published December 2021.
• Volume 5, Tom the Dancing Bug: Eat the Poor (2007-2011), published June 2022.
• Volume 4, Tom the Dancing Bug: All-Mighty Comics (2003-2006), published October 2022.
• Volume 3, On the Trail of Tom the Dancing Bug (1999-2002), published June 2023
• Volume 8, “It’s the Great Storm, Tom the Dancing Bug” (2020-2023), published July 2024

Well, in celebration of the 35th anniversary of the birth of Tom the Dancing Bug, Clover Press and I are finishing the program in one fell swoop, publishing Volumes 1 and 2 simultaneously, in time for the holidays.

• Volume 1, Tom the Dancing Bug: Secret Origins (1990-1994)
• Volume 2, Sex, Tom the Dancing Bug, & Rock ‘n’ Roll (1995-1998)

Yes, it’s the thrilling completion of The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug program.

With all previous volumes, Clover Press sold the books through bookstores, Amazon, etc., and its own website, while I also offered signed/sketched books here and at public appearances.

These volumes will be sold differently, only through a Kickstarter campaign, and then in bookstores, Amazon, etc.  For the time being, I am not selling signed/sketched copies on my own.(1)

Last week, Clover Press announced the Kickstarter, and so I’m passing it on here.From the article in graphicpolicy.com. 

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Ruben Bolling’s groundbreaking and wildly popular comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug is a two-time Pulitzer Prize Finalist that has won multiple awards including the Herblock Prize, the Berryman Award, and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. Now Clover Press is completing its eight-volume collection of definitive editions of the award-winning political humor comic strip with the release of two new volumes of Tom the Dancing Bug, which collect seminal strips originally published from 1990 to 1998. Fans can now follow the pre-launch page for the Kickstarter page to get an email when the project launches later this summer.

Just a year ago, in an article about Bolling, The New Yorker extolled the 1990s Tom the Dancing Bug comics that will comprise these two volumes: ”In the nineties, ‘Tom the Dancing Bug’ felt like a quietly thrilling revelation, beloved by many but never a household name. Bolling seemed to tease all of pop culture, much of human nature, and comics history at once, always with sensitivity and an eye for the subtly absurd.”

Blending a surreal sense of humor with razor-sharp political satire, Tom the Dancing Bug has delighted fans for decades, and Bolling’s work remains as vital and important as ever. Clover Press’s new collections will give readers a chance to see the strip and Bolling’s art evolve throughout the 1990s. Tom the Dancing Bug: Secret Origins collects Bolling’s early comic strips from 1990 to 1994, and Sex, Tom the Dancing Bug, & Rock ‘N’ Roll will collect Bolling’s strips from 1994 to 1998. In addition to the two 200+ page 8″ x 9″ books, the Kickstarter campaign will feature a collectible 11″ x 13″ lithograph print, a slipcase that will hold all 8 volumes of Clover Press’s Tom The Dancing Bug, t-shirts, and more to celebrate Bolling’s beloved dancing bug.

Fans can support Tom the Dancing Bug on Kickstarter by signing up now so you know when it launches later this summer.

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From Clover’s press release:

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“With the announcement of these two volumes, The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug program will soon stand as a full eight-volume chronicle of 35 years of comics – my life’s work,” said Ruben Bolling. “I’m grateful to Clover Press for its commitment to the project.  The quality of the books has been extraordinary, and I’m honored to have this complete set in print.  These two volumes will document this strip’s earliest years, and in some ways, my most audacious and ambitious work.”

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So, yes, please do sign up on this Kickstarter page just to be informed when the campaign starts, at which time you’ll have the opportunity (!) to participate and purchase the books.

By the way, I just started work on an extra item that purchasers will get that I’m particularly excited about.  More info to come!
And of course, for now, I’m still selling signed/sketched copies of Volumes 3-8, info here.
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(footnote 1) This phrase has caused some confusion among readers, particularly my very favorite kind: collectors and completists (among which, for certain series such as “The Complete Carl Barks Library,” I count myself, so I get it). Many of these people have collected signed/sketched editions of Volumes 3-8 and want Volumes 1-2 in a consistent manner. I say that I am not selling them signed/sketched “for the time being” because I don’t know what the future will bring, and I don’t want to be called a liar for saying I’ll never sell these books signed/sketched online. I hope to live a long time, and the Universe is ever-changing. But because of economic realities, Clover Press and I agreed to sell these books this way through a Kickstarter (unsigned and unsketched), and I have no current plans to offer them any other way. But signed or unsigned, rest assured these books are designed to fit perfectly next to Volumes 3-8, creating a perfectly satisfying completion of the line. (Until it’s time for Volume 9, collecting 2024-2027? If I live/stay out of a Trump gulag that long?)

Please sign up for the Tom the Dancing Bug subscription service, the Inner Hive, and join the team that supports Tom the Dancing Bug’s very existence. Joining HERE is easy and fun.

And if you’re interested in exploring options, there are a number of ways you can choose to join: Info here.

-Ruben Bolling

Hey, I’ve been nominated for a National Cartoonists Society Award.

The NCS members will now vote, and the winner will be announced in August at the NCS convention in Boston. And by the way, I am sickened by the whisper campaign against my very talented co-nominees, who do not deserve to have unproven (as of this writing) accusations sully their candidacy for this award, no matter how horrifying the allegations are.

Hey, I theme park nerded-out on the top theme park podcast, Disney Dish, subbing in for the vacationing Len Testa. Hear me talk with Disney historian Jim Hill about DRONES and RIDES and mispronounce VERISIMILITUDE! Link here to listen on Apple podcasts, and the podcast website is here.

Jim and Len, pictured below.

On this Sunday evening, March 16, I’m going to be hosted by fellow cartoonist Tom Tomorrow at Sullaluna in NYC to talk about Tom the Dancing Bug and political cartooning. Fair warning: Tom and I have been friends for over thirty years, so it might devolve into an argument about Star Trek or New Haven pizza. Or just giggling fits.

Seating is limited, but free.

Link to reserve a spot here.

Drawing the Line: Ruben Bolling in Conversation with Tom Tomorrow
Sunday, March 16, 2025, 6:00pm
Sullaluna, 41 Carmine Street, NYC

I will bring some Tom the Dancing Bug books to sell & sign (at cover price).

UPDATE: 3/13: I see that this almost instantly sold out, if that phrase can be used for a free event. Thanks, everyone — I look forward to seeing you there!

link

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The last promotion did so much good, I’m doing it again. This time, I’ll phrase it this way:

If you were thinking of donating to help victims of the L.A. wildfires, do some of it here and you’ll get a free year’s membership in Tom the Dancing Bug’s Inner Hive. Here’s the deal:

From now (Tuesday, 1/14/25, 3:30pm ET) until midnight Sunday night (ET), if you sign up for any annual Inner Hive membership, I’ll donate $33* to the California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Recovery Fund to help victims and communities recover from the devastating Los Angeles wildfires.

👉 You can purchase an annual membership on Patreon here (toggle the “Pay annually” switch).

👉 You can purchase a membership on Substack here. (Hit the Subscribe button, and choose a paid annual membership).

Members of the Inner Hive get each week’s Tom the Dancing Bug comic emailed to them at least a day before it’s published, plus extra comics, commentary, exclusive info, etc.

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*$33 (comes to $2.79 per month) is the base price of an annual Inner Hive membership on Patreon.