[5][6] Fisher, who has no formal art training, read many comics when he was a child (his biggest influence being Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury),[10] and sometimes features their styles in his work.

However, he didn't aspire to be a full-time cartoonist; instead he studied economics as an undergraduate at Tufts University and later attended Harvard Law School (graduating in 1987).

[10] Fisher was working on building a full-time comics career, driven in part by a project, thus far never realized, with New Line Cinema to produce a movie about his character Harvey Richards, Esq., a "Lawyer for Children.

"[12] Newspapers that have published Tom the Dancing Bug include The Washington Post, The Village Voice, and Los Angeles Times.

[16][17] His "mordant wit, superior artwork and inventive delivery" won him the 2021 Berryman Award for Editorial Cartoons from the National Press Foundation.