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Six years ago today I launched what is now one of the most popular military comic strips in the world. While still active duty I stayed up late, stumbled my way through building a website, printed out flyers and pasted them up in the barracks laundry rooms and lounges. At the time, there really wasn’t anything like Terminal Lance on the internet or otherwise. The idea of openly criticizing and laughing about the Marine Corps on the internet was somewhat taboo, and it was a risk for me to put it out there while still in uniform. For the first few months, I thought for sure that I was going to feel the wrath of the green weenie for putting this thing out there… But by maintaining an honest point of view, funny jokes, and (usually) decent artwork, I was able to win the hearts and minds of most of the Corps.
Now, with hundreds of thousands of fans across the globe, it’s surreal to look back and see how much work has actually gone into this comic strip of mine. I know some of you are reading this and wondering if I’m going to run out of jokes or get bored. I don’t know, maybe some day, but to be honest I still have a lot more in the works. Actually, I wanted to use this post to talk about what I’ve got coming up in the near future. Sort of my way of doing some kind of State of the Union Address I suppose.
Firstly… Obviously…
I was hoping I’d be able to launch The White Donkey today, and unfortunately that’s just not happening. As with every step of the way in the creation of this book, it’s taking the bulk shipment of books a lot longer than anticipated to get to me. I suspect that this was due to ordering them right at the start of the holiday season, but the book should be available this month–I just don’t know exactly when.
I know it’s been a long journey with this book, but just stand by for a bit longer. The early copies I got were only enough to send to various media outlets. If you didn’t back the Kickstarter, the book will be available on Amazon this month for $24.95. If you did back the Kickstarter, keep in mind that I’m not going to release the digital PDF version until books are in peoples hands, that way the story doesn’t get spoiled (there’s some major spoilers).
Stand by to stand by.
Second, I think we’re long overdue for a new website. Building a new website for Terminal Lance will allow me to do a couple of things: firstly, it’ll be more modern and functional; but as well it will allow me to start doing some new things. I had mentioned before that I want to open up Terminal Lance for more content, such as op-eds and the like from members of the active duty and veteran community. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but I feel like the current website design isn’t very conducive to more than a comic strip and a blog post. Ironically, expanding Terminal Lance will help take some of the weight off of yours truly so that I can focus on some other things, like developing some new things…
Aside from these late books, everything else is still on track. On a personal note, the books being so late has really been dragging me down lately. I had all of this momentum and excitement finishing the book and now I’m just stuck waiting. Still, I’m excited to finally release it to the public! I don’t think anyone will be expecting what this book is going to throw at them, in the best possible way.
I’ll still be relocating to Los Angeles in a couple of months, and I am going to be aggressively pursuing creating an animation studio (among other things). Don’t worry, Terminal Lance isn’t going anywhere any time soon. There’s still so much to do, including some things I’ve been working on that I haven’t even announced yet.
I also just want to take a moment to thank all of my readers for sticking with me for so long! You guys are the reason I keep doing this! I was enlisted in a Marine Corps without a Terminal Lance… Can you imagine?
Lastly, expect today’s poster to go up for sale this week as a limited edition print!
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