Thrilling Tom the Dancing Bug Stories

Cartoonist Ruben Bolling's oddball strip, Tom the Dancing Bug, makes waves on a weekly basis. Recognized the past two years by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN) as Best Cartoon, Tom the Dancing Bug is "consistently funny, pointed without being dogmatic, and takes on subjects that no one else does . . . an oasis of keen intelligence in the comics page," according to the 2003 AAN judges. Here are just a couple headlines from the quirky strip's "News of the Times":¨ Computer Loses to Human Candy Land Champion: Despite progress made in developing a computer program that can defeat a human chess champion, computer scientists confess that they have been unable to launch a significant challenge to human supremacy in the game of Candy Land.¨ Scientists Discover Media Has Quantum Effect on Reality: A team of physicists discovers that an electron is in an uncertain state until the media report on it. For example, once an electron was measured and reported upon by Mary Hart on the "Celebrity Corner" segment of Entertainment Tonight, it instantly assumed its nature as a particle.Tom the Dancing Bug's client list is diverse, representing the breadth of contemporary journalism: alternative newspapers, such as Dallas Observer and the Village Voice; prestigious daily newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times; Salon.com, an acclaimed online magazine; and the New Yorker magazine.