Tom the Dancing Bug

Publication history

Recurring characters and segments

• God-Man: The Superhero With Omnipotent Powers!: Placed in normal superhero situations, God-Man fights villains like Nietzsche-lad, Dr. Moral Relativism and Blasphemy Boy. God-Man's "mundane identity" is Milton Baxter. God-Man occasionally solves problems by re-creating the universe and organizing the atoms so that the problem is prevented in the first place. Bolling, speaking in an interview about readers who take offense to the God-Man strips, said "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." Billy Billings is "God-Man's Pal", a parody of Jimmy Olsen.
• Louis Maltby is an introverted kid with a major guilt complex. He's featured in segments "Games Louis Plays", which describe how Louis looks at the world, and "The Education of Louis", which show his confusion at the world around him. Louis is used to make social commentary by displaying how school and society treats him, and may be semi-autobiographical. He also sometimes appears in other segments when a kid is needed, and has on at least one occasion appeared in a superhero parody in the guise of his alter-ego, 'The Passive-Aggressor'.
• Lucky Ducky: The Poor Little Duck Who's Rich In Luck, is a recurring segment purportedly presented by Wall Street Journal Comix. Lucky Ducky first appeared in 2002, after The Wall Street Journal editorialized against progressive tax policies, calling poor workers "lucky duckies" because they have a smaller federal income tax burden. In his appearances in Bolling's strip, Lucky Ducky is an anthropomorphic duck who despite being homeless, destitute, and working in a crummy job always manages to enrage his nemesis, the very wealthy Hollingsworth Hound. Hollingsworth views any source of joy, comfort or financial support in Lucky's life to be coming at the expense of the very rich, like himself. As an example, when Lucky is severely injured, and the emergency room accepts him as an indigent patient, Hollingsworth is apoplectic with rage at the "lucky" break the nearly comatose Lucky has received. Typically, the strip will end with a exploited, jailed, and/or near-death and hospitalized Lucky saying "Gotcha!" to an enraged Hollingsworth. Hollingsworth Hound has also occasionally been seen in solo adventures.
• News of the Times parodies current events, in a fashion somewhat reminiscent of The March of Time newsreels.
• Donald and John: A Boy President and his Imaginary Publicist features six year old president Donald Trump, who is seen conferring with his imaginary publicist John Barron The drawing style, lettering, and general tone of the piece is a clear tribute to Calvin and Hobbes.
• Judge Scalia is an extremist version of the U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, used to criticize Justice Scalia's Supreme Court opinions and overall judicial philosophy.
• Did You Know? points out "Fun Facts" in all sorts of things, poking fun at statistic-and-tidbit-obsessed society. The cult of celebrity is also a frequent target, with subversive trivia such as Nicole Kidman had to work as a waitress before she became famous, and not a single person asked her for her autograph and claiming that the Universe has never been nominated for an Oscar.
• Chagrin Falls is a recurring feature about the Smythes, a typical Middle American family.
• Bob is the extremely average male. He sits at home drinking beer and watching scrambled porn on TV on the weekends, and tries to avoid doing chores and other household duties. During the week, he works in the cubicle by the elevator.
• Harvey Richards Esq., Lawyer for Children is about a lawyer who works for children by using the standard children's tricks for getting out of things or getting people to do things. The point is that lawyers act an awful lot like young children. The character has been optioned for a feature film by New Line Cinema, to be co-produced by Universal Press Syndicate's AMUSE division.

• Brain in a Beaker.
• Charley is an australopithecine—a less-developed hominid from the pliocene epoch. He does not have some of the more advanced emotions of humans. He has a taste for grape soft drinks. He appears to be a satire of Curious George.
• Billy Dare, Boy Adventurer parodies the clichés used in boy adventurer stories. Billy is very similar in appearance to Tintin, the famous Belgian comics adventurer.
• Sam Roland, the Detective Who Dies is a Sam Spade-esque noirish private detective, except that he always dies.
• James K. Poult, a Mallard Fillmore parody, is an "unbiased media chicken" with multiple conservative media outlets. He was seen briefly as a supporting character in a Hollingsworth Hound story in 2013, but has not had a "starring" role in any strip for several years.
• The Outer Reaches of Plot Twists parodies The Twilight Zone and Outer Limits, showing stories that use multiple plot twists to the point that suspension of disbelief is difficult to achieve.
• Larry Dodson is an "average joe" type character whom the art world has called "the most important artist of the 21st century."
• Nate the Neoconservative is a neoconservative who refuses to admit his mistakes.
• The Impossible Squad is a military squad of stereotypical 'tough guys', all sergeants that list 'explosives' as their expertise except for one member. They consider explosives to be the only way to complete any mission. However, the 'different' member will always suggest another solution based on his skills but his idea is usually shot down by the rest of the team.
• Hollywood Tales are stories that depict Hollywood celebrities, featuring realistic likeness of their faces, in humorous situations.
• The Ghost of James Caan is a character introduced in a Hollywood Tales story concerning actor Zac Efron. He is supposed to be the disembodied spirit of actor James Caan, despite the fact that Caan is still very much alive. This is also true within the comic, causing confusion to the other characters that appear alongside him. The Ghost of James Caan now makes occasional appearances in "Super-Fun-Pak Comix", below.

  Super-Fun-Pak Comix

• Percival Dunwoody, Idiot Time Traveller from 1909 is in awe of the modern age, although he is also amazed by things that existed well before 1909, including lightbulbs, dogs and hands. However, he is aware of his own idiocy. Later strips have revealed him to be unfamiliar with the mechanics of time travel and causality.
• Dinkle, The UnLovable Loser is a parody of such characters as Ziggy or The Born Loser, with the catch being that his status as a loser is completely justified because he is truly un-lovable; he is narcisstic and typically exhibits obnoxious attitudes, such as anti-Semitism, and sociopathic behaviour, ruthlessly exploiting everyone he encounters.
• Marital Mirth is a parody of The Lockhorns. The strip concerns a middle-aged married couple in an extremely unhappy relationship, and is supposedly drawn by bitter cartoonist Rex Feinstein.
• Doug is an anthropomorphic cartoon creature who is too generically drawn to be any particular type of animal. He is not of high intelligence and has few real talents. The How to Draw Doug scripts make fun of Doug's rather pathetic life.
• Darthfield reimagines the cartoon character of Garfield the cat as Darth Vader.
• Phil Collins is a comic strip about, unsurprisingly, Phil Collins. In recent Fun-Pak strips, he has been teamed up with The Ghost of James Caan.
• Science Facts for the Immature presents a scientific fact which is either a double entendre or is followed by a punchline based on bodily humor. Variations of this mini-strip have included Science Facts for the Depressed and Science Facts for the Internet-Addled.
• Various Superhero comics, featuring superheroes with names and traits that parody superheroes in general. Examples include 'Talk-Up-His-Secret-Identity Man' and 'Garish-Skintight-Lycra-Outfit Man'.
• Hillbilly Bill, of The Hills is a parody of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith.
• Classix Comix/Comix Playhouse is an extremely shortened comic form of famous plays and novels. This is apparently a reference to Classics Illustrated, a series that provided classic books in shortened comic form.
• Comics for the Elderly shows old people giving ornery advice to young people and the young people quickly accepting it.

• Uncle Cap'n is an old lazy pirate who swears and makes you do his work for him through supposed 'puzzles' and 'fun' activities. He is a parody of Cappy Dick.
• Selfish Gene is about a boy named Gene who only acts in ways that are beneficial to him under the framework of sociobiology. This is a reference to Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene.
• Elevator Ride of the Damned is dreadful elevator conversation in comic form.
• Stock Sitcom Gags Presented in Comic Form is self-explanatory.
• Funny, Funny Celebs shows celebrities saying inane things as a parody of the respect we give to celebrities and actors.
• Chaos Butterfly parodies the butterfly effect. Each strip features a butterfly in Brazil flapping its wings and indirectly causing something unpleasant to happen to a man in Chicago some time later.
• Killjoy was Here features Killjoy, a man who ruins any attempt at a funny dialogue by spouting out depressing facts on global issues such as poverty.
• The Epic/Brutal Report is a two-panel comic based on the good news/bad news gag. The first panel has a teenager relaying the 'good news' to his friends, who then exclaim 'Epic!'. In the second panel, he will tell them the 'bad news', to which his friends exclaim 'Brutal!'. The 'bad news' is always extremely disproportional and/or outlandish relative to the 'good news'.
• Larry is a bespectacled man who converses with sight gags usually found in comic strips such as 'Flying Sweat' or 'Flying Feet'.
• This Is Not A Comic Strip strips are instead metacritical deconstructions of the typical newspaper comic strip.
• Oh That ! are parodies of the 'mischievous pet' comic strips, but with the pets replaced by stranger characters such as a wolverine or actor Matthew Modine.
• Yuks are one-panel comics that show a character talking to others using very long dialogues.

Books

• 1992: Tom the Dancing Bug
• 1997: All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned From My Golf-Playing Cats
• 2004: Thrilling Tom the Dancing Bug Stories

  Awards