Showing posts with label Ruben Bolling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ruben Bolling. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

PR: Winner of the 2016 Herblock Prize is Mark Fiore

[corrected 2nd paragraph]

For Immediate Release

WASHINGTON, DC, Wednesday, February 24th, 2016 – Mark Fiore has been named the winner of the 2016 Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning. Fiore is the first to win the Prize with all animated cartoon entries.

Mark Fiore, who the Wall Street Journal has called “the undisputed guru of the form,” creates animated political cartoons in San Francisco, one of the most fertile regions for creating political animation and cartoons. His work has appeared on the San Francisco Chronicle’s web site, Newsweek.com, Slate.com, CBSNews.com, MotherJones.com, NPR’s web site and is currently being featured on online news sites ranging from KQED and Truthdig.com to The Progressive and DailyKos.com. Fiore’s political animation has been featured on CNN, Frontline, BillMoyers.com, Salon.com and cable and broadcast outlets across the globe.

Beginning his professional life by drawing traditional political cartoons for newspapers, Fiore's work appeared in publications ranging from The Washington Post to the Los Angeles Times. In the late 1990s, he began to experiment with animating political cartoons and, after a short stint at the San Jose Mercury News as their staff cartoonist, Fiore devoted all his energies to animation.

Mark Fiore was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for political cartooning in 2010, a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in 2004 and has twice received an Online Journalism Award for commentary from the Online News Association (2002, 2008). Fiore has received two awards for his work in new media from the National Cartoonists Society (2001, 2002), and in 2006 received The James Madison Freedom of Information Award from The Society of Professional Journalists.

The Herblock Prize is awarded annually by The Herb Block Foundation for "distinguished examples of editorial cartooning that exemplify the courageous independent standard set by Herblock." The winner receives a $15,000 after-tax cash prize and a sterling silver Tiffany trophy. Mark Fiore will receive the Prize on May 24th in a ceremony held at the Library of Congress. Mark Shields, a nationally known political analyst, columnist and commentator, will deliver the annual Herblock Lecture at the awards ceremony.

Judges for this year's contest were Kevin Kallaugher (KAL), editorial cartoonist for The Baltimore Sun and The Economist, winner of the 2015 Herblock Prize; Michael Rhode, archivist and author, commentator on comics for the Washington City Paper and creator of the ComicsDC blog; and Peter Kuper, alternative cartoonist and illustrator best known for his autobiographical, political, and social observations is also a visiting professor at Harvard University.

Judge Kevin Kallaugher (Kal) commented, "Mark Fiore's entry contained an engaging and powerful collection of visual commentaries.  Fiore demonstrated a great use of parody, adept writing, great visualizations and solid journalism to deliver thought provoking editorials. Like a good Herblock cartoon, Mark's work displayed a consistent and determined passion to fight against societies' ills and absurdities. It is his skilled and masterful cartoon craftsmanship steeped with determined political convictions that make Fiore's animations worthy of the Herblock Prize."

Peter Kuper added, "From the numerous high quality entries to this year's Herblock Foundation award, Mark Fiore's animation entry rose to the top. Not because it was animated, but rather because he demonstrated a consistently strong handle on his subject matter with an ability to convey complex topics with great humor, rage and irony. Fiore produced a powerful body of work that addresses a range of current events and brilliantly serves them up with a smile and a kick in the gut, heart, and other body parts. His work honors the legacy of Herblock and expands the form."

This year's finalist is Ruben Bolling, pen name for Ken Fisher. He is the author of the weekly comic strip "Tom the Dancing Bug" and will receive a $5,000 after-tax cash prize.  Judge Peter Kuper stated "For decades Ruben Bolling has consistently produced full page comics that find new angles of attack on familiar subjects. With subtlety, yet tremendous humor, he constructs each comic without any wasted space to build to surprising conclusions. Many of his strips take on several topics at the same time and over the years he has honed his art to deliver these ideas with great verve."

The Herb Block Foundation seeks to further the recognition and support of editorial cartooning: www.HerblockFoundation.org.  

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Tom the Dancing Bug cartoonist raises over $4,000 for Haiti

We highlighted Ruben Bolling's campaign to raise money for Haiti when he started, and now Ruben's written in to announce the total he's raised and who won original drawings. Let's here a big round of e-pplause for Ruben and his donors. Remember you can still donate too.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Remember when the Post's Weekend section used to run Tom the Dancing Bug?

Yeah, me too. I actually read the Weekend section back then. Of course they also ran separate movie reviews and not Reader's Digest versions of the Style section ones. Anyway, here's Bolling on creating the strip that we won't see in print this week: This Week's Comic -- And It's Origins, In Excrutiating Detail, December 02, 2008

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Small Press Expo Announces Ted Rall, Ruben Bolling and Matt Wuerker as Guests for “Outside Looking In: Alternative Political Cartooning in 2008”

Small Press Expo Announces Ted Rall, Ruben Bolling and Matt Wuerker as Guests for “Outside Looking In: Alternative Political Cartooning in 2008”

For Immediate Release
Contact: Warren Bernard
Phone: 301-537-4615
E-Mail:webernard@spxpo.com

Bethesda, Maryland; September 9, 2008 - The Small Press Expo (SPX), the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comic books, graphic novels and alternative political cartoons, is proud to announce Ted Rall, Ruben Bolling and Matt Wuerker as guests for the SPX 2008 special event, “Outside Looking In: Alternative Political Cartooning in 2008”.

Ted Rall is the President-elect of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists (A.A.E.C.) and has traveled extensively to Central Asia. Author, ATTITUDE editor, cartoonist, columnist and sometime TV personality, Ted’s most recent book is “Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?” and his latest cartoon collection is, “America Gone Wild”. For more information on Ted Rall, visit his website at http://www.tedrall.com.

Ruben Bolling is the creator of the multi-faceted, multi-paneled social and political weekly strip, Tom The Dancing Bug. His most recent book is “Thrilling Tom The Dancing Bug Stories”. SPX is grateful that Ruben is making his first appearance at SPX in a number of years. Visit his web site at http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/.

Matt Wuerker is the cartoonist and illustrator at Politico.Com and the weekly Politico newspaper. His cartoons and illustrations have been published by Smithsonian Magazine, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and The Nation. You can see his cartoons at http://www.politico.com.

Ted, Ruben and Matt will join previously announced Tom Tomorrow and Lloyd Dangle at a special series of panels and interviews surrounding the state of political cartooning in this historic election year.

Additional guests will be added over the next few weeks, please stay tuned for those announcements.

The events surrounding “Outside Looking In: Alternative Political Cartooning in 2008” is included with the SPX admission fee of $8 for a single day and $15 for both days.

SPX will be held Saturday, October 4 from 11AM to 7PM and Sunday, October 5 noon-6PM at The North Bethesda Marriott Convention Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

For further information on the artists or to request an interview, please contact Warren Bernard at webernard@spxpo.com.

SPX, a non-profit organization, brings together more than 300 artists and publishers to meet their readers, booksellers and distributors each year. Graphic novels, political cartoon books and alternative comics will all be on display and for sale by their authors and illustrators. A series of panel discussions will also be held of interest to readers, academicians and creators of graphic novels and political cartoons.

SPX culminates with the presentation of the 12th Annual Ignatz Awards for outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning that will occur Saturday night, October 4. The Ignatz is the first Festival Prize in the US comic book industry, with winners chosen by balloting during the SPX.

As in previous years, all profits from the SPX will go to support the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), protecting the First Amendment rights of comic book readers and professionals. For more information on the CBLDF, go to their website at
http://www.cbldf.org/.

Founded in 1994, SPX is North America's premier alternative comic-book and graphic novel festival. This annual event brings together comic creators, publishers and fans together to celebrate the art of visual storytelling.