2021.01.25 “Q-Nuts: It’s the Great Storm, Charlie Brown” (Tom the Dancing Bug) By Ruben Bolling

2021.01.25 “Q-Nuts: It’s the Great Storm, Charlie Brown” (Tom the Dancing Bug)
By Ruben Bolling (Ken Fisher, 1963- )
11 x 17 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Ken Fisher, who publishes under his pseudonym Ruben Bolling, has been drawing the weekly full pager, “Tom the Dancing Bug,” since the 1990. It was picked up for syndication in 1997.

I have enjoyed reading his strip for a while. It is carried by Boing Boing, where I read it, although he does have a subscription option ($10/6 mo.) to help alleviate the modern digital dilemma of more-readers/less-income.

“Tom the Dancing Bug” is not a character, it’s a statement. Fisher/Bolling pushes hard on the daily non-sequitur, although there are a few recurring characters and bits.

I thought that this strip, from January 25, 2021, was exceptional. The commentary is straightforward, but it’s an inspired and award-winning delivery from start to finish. The characters in P-Nuts (oops, Peanuts) and Linus’s obsession about the myth of the visit by the Great Pumpkin are recast as Q-Nuts and their obsession about the Great Storm.

The strip is a master lesson in the difference between how parody, which is protected and why he can get away with this, and satire are treated under copyright law. Both are commentary, but a parody uses the context in a way that would render the adaptation meaningless if it was placed in a different setting. That is: if you could lift this script and just as equally well make your point by having the Avengers as the characters, then you are exploiting the characters and the genre is satire. On the other hand, if the only way the script makes sense is coming from those characters, then you are parodying them (much like a weird Al song).

I am also a huge Peanuts fan, the highlight of which was the day in 1997 that I was treated to lunch at the Snoopy Ice Rink in Santa Rosa by Charles Schulz. I was mumblingly incoherent for that entire hour.

And that brings me to this piece. Bolling does not selling his original art. It is a pastiche of pieces and modifications done digitally, so when asked he says, “I have priced it not to sell.” And while that was disappointing, I am undaunted unless the answer is “no, piss off.” So, I asked a different question: would you consider a commission request to reproduce that strip for me?

And here you go. I could not be happier with how this turned out.

And a footnote that I will modify later: I have sent the high-res scan to Gerhard, who will print it out on some fine, fine art paper and work his coloring magic on it. I will post that separately and update this note, accordingly, when it’s done.