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By Corrie Pikul
Jan. 14, 2005 | "If only I could make enough money selling my art so that I didn't have to go to this stupid job every day " It's every young artist's dream that the passion they pour into their work will ignite a magnificent inferno of fame and fortune, right? Maybe Ruben Bolling, creator of the comic strip "Tom the Dancing Bug," is bending the truth a little when he claims that his position as a banker is the reason he's able to churn out week after week of provocative, edgy comics. Or maybe, at 42, Bolling has figured out the key to creative freedom.
"Tom the Dancing Bug" is the umbrella title given to a series of unrelated, eclectic comic strips. Many of the strips are directly inspired by current events, while others simply offer Bolling's wacky perspective on everyday life. One of my favorites is a one-off from 2003 about a "Humane Foie Gras Farm." This hypothetical company makes its ducks fat and delicious "by giving them the lifestyle and privileges we all enjoy as Americans" (i.e., parking them in La-Z-Boy chairs "to watch hours of TV, surrounded by a dizzying array of cheese products, starch products, and cheese-filled starch products!").
Bolling's creative energy is clearly not sapped by his financial work, as his cartoons are overflowing with ideas. Through an endless parade of characters, Bolling takes swipes at the Bush administration, pokes holes in Western religion and mocks American adolescence. The comic strip is as free-ranging as a cow on a Neiman Ranch-covered moon -- and about as absurd.
In contrast to a lot of funny things (like Whoopee Cushions and Drew Carey), "Tom the Dancing Bug" is best consumed in large quantities. An occasional dose of Charley the Australopithecine, a strip about an unpredictable ape that acts like an ill-mannered adolescent, or God-Man, the most omnipotent superhero in the universe, probably won't pack much of a comic wallop. But after poring over consecutive pages of Bolling's work, a true appreciation of "Tom the Dancing Bug" will develop. Bolling is consistently funny and clever, and he almost never produces a strip with a half-baked concept or a lazy ending. Each strip is carefully planned and meticulously executed, and all the elements (style, tone, punch line, even the font) fit together as if Bolling had been drawing that particular strip for years (even though it's more likely to be a brand-new concept).
"Tom the Dancing Bug" appears in the Village Voice and the S.F. Weekly as well as dailies such as the Washington Post, the San Jose Mercury News and Salon.com, and has won quite a following. It even won the Association of Alternative Newspapers Award for best cartoon in both 2002 and 2003.
Bolling, who has no formal art training, feasted on a smorgasbord of comics when he was a kid, and his fascination (sometimes obsession) with different drawing styles is characteristic of his work. However, he didn't aspire to be a full-time cartoonist; instead he studyied economics as an undergraduate and later attended Harvard Law School. It was at Harvard in the mid-'80s that Bolling suddenly found himself in possession of two rare and superhuman gifts: the ability to draw exceptionally well, and the power to make smart people laugh. Bolling came up with the idea for "Tom the Dancing Bug" in law school and has been drawing under that name ever since. "Ruben Bolling" is a pseudonym -- the artist likes to keep his identity secret from the working stiffs back at the office (he doesn't want the boss to know too much about his political and ideological sensibilities).
"Thrilling Tom the Dancing Bug Stories," a compilation of recent comics (the third in this series), was recently released by Andrews McMeel Publishing. Bolling agreed to take a short break between his two jobs to meet with Salon and discuss the balance between art and life.
How did you come up with the name "Tom the Dancing Bug"?
When I was in law school, I saw an ad in the newspaper for a comic strip artist. I answered it with an idea for a comic strip that would be totally free-form, that would change from week to week, and that would have no title. My editor insisted that it have a title, and that was the one condition he put on publishing it. So I tried to think of something really stupid. I remembered that earlier that day, when I was in class, a friend of mine spotted a bug on his pen. My friend started twirling the pen, and the bug was bending his knees to keep from falling off. It looked like he was dancing, so I called him Tom the Dancing Bug. That's the name I gave my editor, out of spite, and it stuck.
Has a dancing bug ever appeared in any of your comic strips?
I once did a strip where there was a dancing bug, but he was never seen. The joke was that he had been stepped on by one of the characters. I didn't put that in any of the books, so that's a little bit of trivia for you.
Did you ever practice law?
Yes, I practiced law when I first got out of law school, for a year and half, and then I made a very big dramatic showing of quitting the firm to go out and seek my fame and fortune through cartooning. It didn't quite work out that way. I came back [to work] pretty quickly. I've had a day job ever since.
How do you balance having a day job in finance and cartooning?
It's very Clark Kent-like. It's two different worlds. I even take my glasses off. Some people who have had day jobs, like Scott Adams of Dilbert, use their day job as material for their comics. You can tell from my comics that I don't do that at all. I keep my job in one hemisphere of my brain and my cartooning in the other, and there is very little overlap.
Then what does inspire you to make cartoons?
I love "The Daily Show." I love sketch comedy, and that's been a huge influence on my humor and writing style, things like Monty Python, "Kids in the Hall" and "Mr. Show." I'll watch a show like that and get really excited, and I'll want to do what they're doing. That will inspire me to write a comic.
What were your favorite strips as a kid?
I loved Peanuts -- I still do. It's just a brilliant form of American art, the way [Charles M. Schulz] developed all the characters, the pathos behind every strip. The early stuff was almost postmodern, the kind of thing I strive for in my Super Fun Pack comics. Something was lost once Snoopy became a major part of the strip, though.
I also loved Mad Magazine, all those artists (Al Jaffee, Will Elder). I really read everything, whether it was funny or not. If I was in a store and I could hector my parents into buying me something, I'd get it, whether it was "Andy Capp" or "B.C." -- it didn't matter to me. I just loved comics.
When you first started out, you were "self-syndicated." What does that mean?
I started "Tom the Dancing Bug" in 1990 in a small New York newspaper. It was called New York Perspectives, then it was called New York Weekly, then it was called "bankrupt." But before it went bankrupt, I was able to sell the strip to a few other papers. For seven years, I was sending packages out and following up with phone calls, trying to get editors to run the strip. I ended up selling it to about 60 newspapers. I was surprised at the success I had, especially in selling to daily newspapers. I didn't think it would be my market.
In 1997, the Universal Press Syndicate approached me and asked if we could work together. That came at just the right time, as I was starting a more serious day job, and I was about to have my first baby. I just didn't have the time and energy to devote to the selling of the strip. I decided that whatever job they did would be better than whatever I could put forth at that time.
What is your personal favorite character or comic story in "Tom the Dancing Bug"?
The cliché answer is that my favorite is the last one I did. But it's true. When I think of a new character or a new format, it's like a new toy. I use it a lot.
You're right: That is cliché. How about if I ask it this way: Which comic gets the best response from your readers? And if you answer this one, I'll tell you what my favorite "Tom the Dancing Bug" comic is.
My most popular character was probably Harvey Richards, the lawyer for children. I developed him in law school, and got a huge reaction whenever I used him. He's not in the latest book, though. I had to stop using him because I didn't want to repeat myself, and I wanted to be able to stretch in other directions. I think I've used him only once in the past three years, and then only in a cameo appearance.
These days I'm always glad when I can think of a Billy Dare comic. He's fun to draw. I'm using a Tintin look, and I enjoy playing with the narrative structure of that strip.
Personally, I love the God-Man strips. They're silly and subversive.
While that is also quite popular, God-Man gets very negative reactions -- more than any other character, in fact. People seem to take offense to any comments about religion. It's sort of ironic because these same people wonder why there is very little discussion of religion in American culture, but when I introduce the subject, their tendency is to want to shut it down. They seem to miss the point: God-Man isn't actually God. He is a straw man that I'm using to make fun of some people's very simplistic views about religion and philosophy. They literally forget that and think that I'm offending God Himself with these strips.
Has there been anything that you stopped drawing because it was deemed too controversial for readers?
My goal with this strip was always to do whatever I wanted, and not worry about the consequences. I really think it's the day job that allows me that luxury. I don't have to worry about the economic consequences of feeding my family because I'm hedged with a day job. It's certainly a lot of work to maintain that hedge, but it gives me total freedom. I don't know if I would write the same way if the success of the comic strip was going to be the determining factor of whether or not I was going to be able to feed my family.
What has been the most memorable response you've gotten to your work?
After 9/11, there was one particular comic I did using the Super Fun Pack comic format, where I had random jokes, but the punch line to every strip was, "Terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center and killed thousands of people." I have such an ironic stance in the strip, it's not apparent when I'm actually expressing something heartfelt. I was extremely emotional when I drew that particular strip. It was how I was feeling: Everything was interrupted horribly, and everything was about that. The people who responded to that were very warm in their response.
Most of your strips play on current events, cultural controversy. One notable exception is Charley the Australopithecine. What is an australopithecine, anyway?
It's an ancient ape. The species that led to Homo sapiens. He's an ancestor of man, an ancient extinct species of ape. I'm always happy when I think of an idea for Charley because it means I can spend more time with him. I use him to make a comment on how we can forget that we are really animals. He's not that different from us.
Where on earth did he come from?
I started him in the late '80s when I was trying to get a syndicate interested in a daily comic strip before I started "Tom the Dancing Bug." He was going to be my character for a daily comic strip that never worked out -- thankfully. I think I would hate doing Charley every single day. But I love drawing him on occasion. I enjoy the surreal, absurdist humor stuff (like Charley, or Schluff the Alien Who Naps) a lot more than anything that's in response to a current event, or my political cartoons.
With a good political strip, or a topical one, the ideal response would be, "Wow, how did he think of that? How did he think of that take on that subject?" My goal for a general humor one is, the reader would say, "Wow, why did he think of that?" That's the higher calling. When I see that in other comic strips or comedians, that's what I'm most impressed by: something that you don't know why he thought of it, but it just seems so right.
I noticed, as a female reader, you have very few strips about women, or about sex. Is that conscious?
For some reason, when I started the strip, even though it was in an alternative weekly and only one paper and they would have loved me to do something sex-related and controversial, I always thought that the standards for the strip should be what could appear on television. So I don't have any cursing or nudity or strong sexual content. Maybe it's just modesty or puritanical outlook, but I just always thought, that's not for me. I'll leave it to others.
I admit that the strip is very male-centered. And I think that it's common among male humorists to leave out the female point of view. I just saw a documentary about the TV show "Seinfeld." Did you know they had to be told to put in a female character? The network told them to add in Elaine, as the writers had originally forgotten to include a female character. It didn't occur to them that a female character would be advantageous for the show. I think the same thing sort of happened with my work. Then again, Charley has some gender issues, and Louis does, too
True, but they both act like 13-year-old boys.
I think that's where I'm stuck from a gender perspective.
One more thing: It seemed like God-Man got meaner and less compassionate over time. Did that parallel any occurrence in your own life?
I think on a superficial level I found it funnier if God-Man would step into disputes and then not resolve them in the way that people expected him to. Why I found that juxtaposition funny, and increasingly so over time, maybe that's due to a changed outlook on life. Things have changed in my life, and also in our country, so maybe I unconsciously found that later approach to be a more truthful way to deal with God-Man.
-- By Corrie Pikul
