Ruben Bolling, author of Tom the Dancing Bug syndicated cartoon in which he satirizes much in modern society, will speak on “Finding Creativity in Your Life and Career,” Thursday, April 7, at 7 p.m. in the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, located in the Fine Arts Center at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha, 1500 N. University Dr., Waukesha.
Tickets for this Distinguished Lecturer presentation are $5 or $3 with a student ID and $2 with a UW-Waukesha student ID. A reception in the Commons will follow the talk.
A lawyer-turned-banker, the cartoonist adopted a pen name taken from old-time baseball players Ruben Amaro and Frank Bolling. As Bolling, he creates a weekly cartoon lampooning the vagaries of current events. His favorite targets are large corporations, government corruption, war, the manipulation of the media and celebrity culture.
The man in the suit has a law degree from Harvard, but the man with inks hobnobs with such as Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury) and Bill Giffith (Zippy the Pinhead).
He attempted cartooning while an undergraduate economics major at Tufts University, Boston, but retired his pens in law school until he saw an ad that he took as his invitation to return to the art. Needing to name the cartoon, he recalled a fellow student twisting a pencil with a bug clinging to it for life, and Tom the Dancing Bug was christened. Now Bolling is trying to make writing/cartooning his full-time job. He has been working with New Line Cinema to produce a movie about his character Harvey Richards, Esq., a “Lawyer for Children.”
He has published three book-form collections: Tom the Dancing Bug, 1992; All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned from My Golf-Playing Cats, 1997; and Thrilling Tom the Dancing Bug Stories, 2004.
Bolling is a member of Cartoonists with Attitude.
The program is sponsored by the Lectures & Fine Arts Committee, and parking is free in all lots after 4 p.m.