Ruben Bolling: Difference between revisions
→Awards: More awards |
→Bibliography: Added two 2020 books. Also "What The Hell.." doesn't seem to have been actually published as the ISBN entry isn't complete. |
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* 2015: ''Alien Invasion in My Backyard: An EMU Club Adventure'' (Andrews McMeel) {{ISBN|978-1449457099}} |
* 2015: ''Alien Invasion in My Backyard: An EMU Club Adventure'' (Andrews McMeel) {{ISBN|978-1449457099}} |
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* 2015: ''Ghostly Thief of Time: An EMU Club Adventure'' (Andrews McMeel) {{ISBN|978-1449457105}} |
* 2015: ''Ghostly Thief of Time: An EMU Club Adventure'' (Andrews McMeel) {{ISBN|978-1449457105}} |
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* 2020: '' |
* 2020: ''The Super-Fun-Pak Comix Reader'' (Clover Press) {{ISBN|978-1-951038-30-4}} |
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* 2020: ''Tom the Dancing Bug: Into the Trumpverse'' (Clover Press) {{ISBN|1-9510-3808-8}} |
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== References == |
== References == |
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Revision as of 03:04, 20 March 2021
| Ruben Bolling | |
|---|---|
 Ruben Bolling speaks at a Borders Books in Washington DC, July 7, 2007. | |
| Born | Kenneth Fisher 1963 (age 60–61) New Jersey, U.S.[1] |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Cartoonist |
| Pseudonym(s) | Ruben Bolling |
Notable works | Tom the Dancing Bug Super-Fun-Pak Comix |
| Awards | Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, Best Cartoon, 2002, 2003,[2] 2006 Society of Professional Journalists Award for Editorial Cartooning, 2011, Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning, 2017. |
| Children | 3 |
| Ruben Bolling on X | |
Ruben Bolling (born c. 1963[2] in New Jersey) is a pseudonym for Ken Fisher, an American cartoonist, the author of Tom the Dancing Bug and Super-Fun-Pak Comix. His pieces demonstrate concern about the power of large corporations and satirize the way government has been corrupted by money. Particularly since 2001, Bolling's work often concerns war.[1] Many of his strips admit no political interpretation, instead featuring absurdist humor or parodying comic strip conventions. Bolling's lampoons of celebrity culture, such as in the parodic series of comic strips labeled "Funny, Funny, Celebs", can be scathing.[citation needed]
Career
Fisher, who has no formal art training, read many comics when he was a child (his biggest influence being Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury),[2] and sometimes features their styles in his work. However, he didn't aspire to be a full-time cartoonist; instead he studied economics as an undergraduate at Tufts University and later attended Harvard Law School (graduating in 1987).[2] It was at Harvard in the mid-1980s that Fisher came up with the idea for "Tom the Dancing Bug" and his pseudonym, Ruben Bolling (which is a melding of the names of two favorite old-time baseball players, Ruben Amaro and Frank Bolling).[1] Tom the Dancing Bug originally ran in the Harvard Law School Record.[2]
After graduation, Fisher practiced law for several years before resigning to pursue comics full-time. When that didn't work out, comic writing became a side interest and Fisher became a full-time employee at a financial services company.[1][2] Tom the Dancing Bug was picked up for weekly syndication in 1997 by Universal Press Syndicate.[2]
Fisher was working on building a full-time comics career, driven in part by an ongoing project with New Line Cinema to produce a movie about his character Harvey Richards, Esq., a "Lawyer for Children."[3]
A Super Fun-Pak Comix installment from 2014, entitled The Comic Strip That Has A Finale Every Day, parodied farewell installments from long-running comic strips. This then became an ongoing feature on the gocomics.com site under the pseudonym "John 'Scully' Scully," releasing the same comic every day.
In 2012, Fisher founded a subscription service, the Inner Hive, for Tom the Dancing Bug.[4]
In 2015, Fisher published the first in a series of children's books, The EMU Club Adventures.[5]
Awards
Fisher is a five-time winner of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Award for Best Cartoon, for 2002, 2003, 2007[6], 2008, and 2009[7]. In 2020, he received the Society of Professional Journalists award for Editorial Cartooning for a non-daily publication[8].
Fisher won numerous awards for his satirical criticism of the Donald Trump presidency. He was the winner of the 2017 Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning[9] based on a selection 15 Trump-themed in Tom the Dancing Bug cartoons. He won the 2017 Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society[10] for "Donald and John," an ongoing series in the style of Calvin and Hobbes that cast Donald Trump as a childish Calvin-like figure and Trump alter-ego John Barron as Trump's "imaginary publicist" in place of Hobbes.
He was awarded a prize for best cartoon in the 2018 Robert F. Kennedy Book & Journalism Awards[11] and in 2019 he was a finalist in the Editorial Cartooning category for the Pulitzer Prize.[12].
Personal life
Fisher is married to a lawyer; they have three children.[2]
Bibliography
- 1992: Tom the Dancing Bug ISBN 0-06-096949-0
- 1997: All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned From My Golf-Playing Cats ISBN 1-56163-183-3
- 2004: Thrilling Tom the Dancing Bug Stories (oversized treasury) (Andrews McMeel) ISBN 0-7407-4737-1
- 2015: Alien Invasion in My Backyard: An EMU Club Adventure (Andrews McMeel) ISBN 978-1449457099
- 2015: Ghostly Thief of Time: An EMU Club Adventure (Andrews McMeel) ISBN 978-1449457105
- 2020: The Super-Fun-Pak Comix Reader (Clover Press) ISBN 978-1-951038-30-4
- 2020: Tom the Dancing Bug: Into the Trumpverse (Clover Press) ISBN 1-9510-3808-8
References
- ^ a b c d Bolonik, Kera. "The World According to Ruben Bolling," Tufts Magazine (Spring 2006).
- ^ a b c d e f g h Elder, Robert K. "Being Ruben Bolling: An alter ego and a day job let Ken Fisher draw comics precisely as he pleases," Chicago Tribune (May 4, 2004).
- ^ Bolling interview, Deconstructing Comics Podcast #228, (April 19, 2010).
- ^ Come on and join Tom the Dancing Bug's INNER HIVE! Boing Boing (May 9, 2012)
- ^ Book: Alien Invasion In My Backyard Boing Boing (April 7, 2015)
- ^ Gardner, Alan. Ruben Bolling Wins Best Cartoon Award from AAN. The Daily Cartoonist (June 10, 2008)
- ^ Xerexes, Xavier. Onward Into the Webcomics Breach. Comix Talk (July 1, 2009)
- ^ Announcing winners of the 2010 Sigma Delta Chi Awards for journalism (May 10, 2011)
- ^ 2017 Prize Winner. Herb Block Foundation (March 19, 2021)
- ^ 71st Annual Reuben Award Winners Announced! National Cartoonists Society (May 27, 2017)
- ^ FULL LIST: 2018 Robert F. Kennedy Book & Journalism Award Winners (May 3, 2018)
- ^ Finalist: Ken Fisher, drawing as Ruben Bolling, freelancer
External links
- Ruben Bolling on X
| International | |
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| National | |