Comics Reporter Tom Spurgeon profiles Tom The Dancing Bug creator Ruben Bolling (real name Ken Fisher) for his Sunday Interview.
TOM SPURGEON: We tend to link cartoonists to their primary venue — “comic book artist” or “strip cartoonist” — but it strikes me that you don’t have a lot of company doing exactly what you do, how you do it. How would you describe your primary place in comics? Do you envision your work as separate as, say, something that appears on Boing Boing or in syndication?
RUBEN BOLLING: Tom The Dancing Bug is definitely an oddball thing. It’s a comic strip that is syndicated in newspapers, but it’s weekly, large-format, sometimes political and also appears prominently and separately on the web. It’s shaped like a comic book page, and uses many different styles, often evoking the styles of comic books, such as superhero comics and funny animal comics.
Also my humor style does not really come directly from cartooning, but from television comedy.
What an excellent interview! Reuben/Ken is definitely one of the best cartoonists of the last quarter century. It amazes me how smart and funny Tom the Dancing Bug is week in and week out. I love when it gets the attention it deserves!