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Well today is a good day indeed. It is today that we are marking the 100th official strip since my January 5th, 2010 release. Obviously, this isn’t including the strips you see in the Marine Corps Times–as those aren’t numbered. This is obviously meant to be seen with a sense of humor, as I get enough emails from SNCO’s and officers to know that Terminal Lance is appreciated across the board by all ranks. However, I imagine strips like TL #15 don’t sit well with the more motivated types.
Though I’m open to all aspects and facets of humor, Terminal Lance will remain what it was from the get-go: a funny comic strip based off of the life of an infantry (as in 03xx) Lance Corporal. I get emails all the time asking me to portray other fields and MOS’s. I’m not technically opposed to the idea, but I just don’t have the first-hand experience to really make anything funny. As I was an 0351, I am limited to my experiences as a grunt–which I’m fine with.
On this special occasion, I would like to take a moment to do something unheard of in the brief history of Terminal Lance. I’m going to introduce to you two characters you may have already noticed are recurring in strips.
As you all know, we have our main character–who has been referred to as “Lance Corporal” on many occasions as I wanted to keep him anonymous. However, as you may have read in the Marine Corps Times I have been at work on an actual Terminal Lance graphic novel. The graphic novel is a narrative storyline, with characters that have names and personalities of their own. Our main character?
Abe
Welcome Abe. His last name is notoriously difficult for his platoon and section members to pronounce, so they have taken to just referring to him by his first name–which he doesn’t mind, as it beats getting some crazy knick-name.
The other character I would like to introduce you to that has come up in a couple recent strips is LCPL Garcia.
LCPL Garcia
Garcia doesn’t quite have the scathing wit that Abe does, but lives his life on grounds of common sense. Abe and Garcia are largely inseparable during work hours, on field ops and deployment. (I realize these aren’t the best photos in the world, but expect to see better ones soon).
I don’t want to go into too much detail with the novel and story itself–but expect to find Abe and Garcia as the central characters.
Outside of this, I also have a short blooper video ready to watch from the charity drive last month. I’ll post it tomorrow, as my internet is too slow to cooperate with me right now.
Anyway, thank you all for making Terminal Lance what it is. Without the loyal support from Marines all over the planet, I would have just been another webcomic in the vast expanse of failed webcomics on the internet. As it stands, Terminal Lance is actually ranked (by Alexa) as being one of the top military webcomics in existence. (Not counting old cartoons like Doonesbury, etc). We see more traffic than Sempertoons and AF Blues (not that they aren’t great comics as well), and Terminal Lance has only been out for a year.
Have a good weekend and I’ll see you next week! Don’t forget to pick up a copy of the Marine Corps Times every week for new, exclusive Terminal Lance strips you won’t find here or anywhere else!
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