Ruben Bolling Profile in The New Yorker

From The New Yorker. 

“Tom the Dancing Bug,” which Ruben Bolling began publishing widely in 1990, has always been free-form and vaudevillian from week to week—original characters, recurring parodies and satires, one-offs, a terrific long-running meta-funny-pages gag.

His illustration style tends toward a tidy clean-line aesthetic, à la “Tintin,” but it morphs to suit whatever he’s up to: hatched and shaded portrait-style depictions of celebrities and politicians; imitations of other artists; fake ads, posters, and informational broadsides. 

Early on, Bolling had “Saturday Night Live,” Mad magazine, and “Mr. Show” in mind as inspirations. 

The strip has become more political over time, especially in recent years, though the past few weeks of U.S. election news—an assassination attempt in one party, the passing of the candidacy torch in the other—has been atypical in its intensity. 

Like all satirists of our era, Bolling has learned to adapt.