Year: 2016

The Armory is my trigger.

As I was frolicking about Disneyland yesterday with my family, I couldn’t help but notice an eerie feeling of deja vu as we waited for endless hours in the Southern California sun. It was a hark back to the many countless hours I spent waiting in line at the armory trying to turn my weapon in.

These were dark times in my life, and I prefer not to recount them. If I have a personal hell designed just for me, it would be standing in line at the armory, clean rifle in hand, and never reaching the window.

There is something undeniably abhorrent about the armory, as a general thing. Its gray cement walls, speckled with unnervingly small windows lend to a feeling of inadequacy and claustrophobia just at the mere sight of it. My memories of the armory are filled with standing, sandwiched between other Marines in the torrid Hawaiian sun–or even just cleaning.

Endless cleaning.

Your weapon is clean, but still not clean enough.

Go back and clean it some more.

The inside of the armory is equally loathsome, lit only by the sanitized buzz of florescent lighting. Metal cages decorate the interior; though it’s unclear whether they’re designed to keep intruders out, or keep the armory custodians in.

Lastly, if I might offer you a tip of sorts, don’t go to Disneyland during the summer. It’s crowded as fuck.

…Only she doesn’t dance on the stands, because she has encephalitis.

As I’m sure you all know, the 2016 Olympics begin today in Rio, and it’s been a nonstop shitshow leading up to it. This strip isn’t even particularly out of left field, as Marines (and others) actually were sent to the cesspool of drug-ridden favelas and disease to boost security operations with the local forces.

At the very least, those guys will probably see more action in Rio than anywhere else right now. That is, assuming they don’t fall victim to the Zika virus or any of the “super bacteria” floating around in the shitwater in which athletes have to swim.

Rio literally is a shitshow.

I’ll be cheering on our US athletes’ immune systems more than their physical prowess over the following weeks. Good luck Marines.

In other news, I’m pretty much set up here now, which is great. A lot has been going on behind the scenes here, and I’m excited to make some announcements pretty soon…

This is an abusive relationship.

All Marines have a relationship with the Marine Corps, and for the most part it falls somewhere on the Love/Hate spectrum of things. The Corps is what it is. It can be really awesome sometimes and other times it can be really awful. It’s a lot like a broken marriage or a controlling significant other–a relationship wrought with suspicion, anger and contempt–but with occasionally really great sex.

You more keen observers of Terminal Lance might notice that this is a Marine Corps Times comic strip published a few issues ago. Not to be too apologetic, but my new place still isn’t really up and running. Lack of internet has severely impeded my ability get back to full speed (connecting via my phone right now). I’ll be back up and running hopefully by Friday! Internet gets installed tomorrow, so I have that going for me, which is nice.

On a totally unrelated note, Burbank is the fucking shit. Like moving usually is, it’s been exhausting getting settled (and moving/buying furniture), but we’re nearly there.

I say this a lot but there really is a lot of great behind-the-scenes stuff going on right now that I think fans of TL will be really excited to see come to fruition soon. Among them are a new website, new comics, and some really big things I can’t talk about right now. There’s a lot of new things happening, but they take time to develop and I don’t like to show my hand until the time is right.

Stay tuned, it’ll be worth it.

On a side note, if you haven’t bought a copy of The White Donkey, you should do it. I heard it’s good.

Finally we see the origin story of the Green Weenie. Who would have thought that such a powerful entity was once a man.

I can only imagine the twisted fate that Willie must have met to become such a powerful spirit, forever haunting the Marine Corps as a demonic presence. His lingering existence plaguing Marines for centuries.
The Green Weenie is forever.

Congratulations to Louie Earle for this winning comic submission! He won himself a signed 1st edition copy of The White Donkey and some other fun loot.

Here are some runner-up comics that I liked!

So what’s been going on with Max lately? Well I just relocated to a new apartment in beautiful Burbank and don’t even have internet installed yet. I also need a refrigerator and a couch, but honestly the internet is more important. Look forward to a more normal schedule once I get settled in here!

If you want to buy a copy of The White Donkey for yourself because you didn’t win one here, click here. Now 12 weeks on the New York Times best seller list!

There’s a common term in the Marine Corps known as “The Suck.”

Much like the omnipresent Green Weenie, The Suck perpetually exists as a state of being in the Corps. Everything you do is part of The Suck, mostly because everything you do just kind of sucks for some reason.

There’s an inexplicable phenomenon in the military, where even when you’re doing the most awesome thing you can possibly think of, the powers that be find some way to make it a dragging, miserable experience. For instance, shooting guns with your friends all day sounds like a great time, except for the part where you have to go the armory at 5am, stand around in the sun for hours, go through safety briefs, brass call, check for saved rounds, return weapons to the armory, etc. It’s just a shitty day for something that sounds like it’s going to be awesome.

This is a common pattern though, layers of bureaucracy and the tact of your 52 year old father trying to be hip and cool permeate every activity of the Corps establishment.

You can never escape The Suck.

In other news, I’ve got some stuff going on this week that’ll make doing a comic for Friday rather difficult, so I’m holding a contest! You get to draw Friday’s new Terminal Lance!

Click on the image above to download it.

The Rules:

• Must be original artwork (no memes or copy/pasting others)
• Must be an original joke
• Must use template provided
• Must have your name on it
• DEADLINE: JULY 28th @ 1700 PST
• Only open to Active Duty and Active Reserve Servicemembers and Veterans

The Prize:

• Autographed First Edition of “The White Donkey”
• Terminal Lance challenge coin
• Terminal Lance sticker!

Email your submission to me at maximilian.uriarte@terminallance.com, put the subject as “TERMINAL LANCE COMIC CONTEST.”

I will personally sift through and pick the winner, which will be featured as Friday’s comic! Personally chosen runner up comics will also most likely be posted. By entering the contest you agree to have your work displayed on www.terminallance.com

Good luck!

The Air Force is a weird branch of the military.

Semantically, if you were to define “military” by things that are generally “military,” like fitness, shooting guns, hiking, being a hard ass, etc., I’m not sure if the Air Force would fit into that. This isn’t to say the Air Force isn’t important in our national defense–of course they are–but more that it is the military lite. A Diet Military, if you would.

Marines and Airmen are nearly opposites in every conceivable way, as Abe describes in this strip. If it weren’t for their largely symbiotic relationship, you could probably say the same things about the Navy and the Corps as well. However, Marines and Navy are like peanut butter and jelly–they stick together and go great on a sandwich (or something).

Ignoring the Coast Guard for a second (lol we usually do), the Air Force is generally the outlier of the military. They’re small and mostly keep to themselves, with their culture rarely permeating the popular consciousness. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just their style. They don’t tend to make as much noise as Marines or Army in the news, but we love them all the same.

The title of this strip is even an homage to an Air Force comic. Did you know that Air Force Blues is back up? Check it out!

Late strip today. The world is on fire and I’m just trying to keep up. I thought about tackling some current events, but honestly I just wanted to get back to some classic Terminal Lance material. You know, back in the days when I just made jokes about life in the military and didn’t have a responsibility to comment on every current event.

Anyway, if you’d like to see me in person, I’ll be in Oregon next week! Here’s where you can find me:

• Corvallis, OR — Monday July 18th
  • Grass Roots Book & Music at 7pm
• Portland, OR — Tuesday July 19th
  • Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing (Beaverton) at 7pm
• San Diego Comic Con — Thursday July 21st
  • Panel, Graphic Novels as a Medium, Room 29AB
  • I’ll be signing books after the panel as well!

Come out and say what’s up! Oregon is my home, born and raised, I’m excited to go back.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or have an old flip phone), you’ve probably seen the craze that is the new Pokemon GO app on smartphones. Twenty-something year olds have taken to the streets as kids again, enslaving iconic Pokemon into their red and white orb prisons and sending them into virtual battle.

I’m pretty sure the Marine Corps almost completely shut down this week with Marines across the continent engaged in the hunt.

Why is the world’s most hardened fighting force so obsessed with this silly game? If you’ve found yourself bewildered and scared over the last week in lieu of this new craze, I’m going to fill you in on some key information.

Remember that silly Japanese Gameboy game that kids were obsessed with in the late 90’s? The one with the Pikachu and the cards and the toys and the movies and the billions of dollars? Well, kids grow up, and many of them are in their mid-twenties now. These people probably grew up literally obsessed with Pokemon at the time, and are now reliving the nostalgia of their childhood.

Not to sound like a badass, but I actually still have two holographic Charizard cards. Yeah, it’s okay, you can change your panties. I’ll wait.

But for real, the entire Corps is obsessed. The Japanese had it all wrong with World War II. Pearl Harbor was a terrible plan to defeat the United States military, all they had to do was develop some super cute animal things that you lob balls at all day. If only they would have thought of it sooner!

Sorry for the lack of update last week, it ended up just being kind of a crazy week. I ended up needing to go to the ER due to a bad sinus infection and then I found myself in San Francisco speaking at the Marine’s Memorial Club hopped up on antibiotics and Pepto Bismol. I want to thank everyone that was able to come out for your support, it was a great night and I had a lot of fun! I especially want to thank Christopher Starling and the rest of the staff at the hotel for their hospitality, it’s truly a beautiful place to visit and stay. If you’re a Marine and you’ve never been, I really do encourage you to go, you won’t feel more welcome anywhere else.

On a side note, a lot of weird shit has been going on in my apartment lately. If I suddenly die of mysterious circumstances or develop some crazy form of cancer, just assume I’ve been assassinated lol but seriously what the fuck.

You keen observers of Terminal Lancian culture might have noticed that this strip was previously published in the Marine Corps Times newspaper a couple of years ago. However, I felt like today this was an appropriate strip to put up after having dealt with the VA healthcare system myself just earlier today.

I feel like picking on the VA is fairly low-hanging fruit at this point, but this is still a real issue. Here’s the thing, we all know that the hospital staff (nurses and doctors, etc) are not the problem. They are doing their best with the limited resources they have, and quite often do it admirably. The issue is with the layers of bureaucracy that veterans have to go through to even get to see them.

Generally speaking, my experiences with the VA haven’t actually been that bad. When I was living in the bay area, I never had to wait more than a few days for an appointment, and it was like any other doctor’s office I’d ever been to. This morning, having some lingering medical issues, I decided to try my hand at possibly getting looked at by a doctor.

The conversation on the phone went something like this:

“Hello, I would like to see a doctor.”

“Okay, does early or late September work better for you?”

“…It’s June.”

That was basically it. Luckily, and weirdly, I was actually able to just get seen as a walk-in after waiting a couple of hours at the VA itself. Again, when you actually get into it, the staff and doctors are great, but actually getting there is the challenge.

But of course, I’m not saying anything that everyone doesn’t already know.

It would just be great if there was some kind of effort to fix it.

You know how when you watch a movie about the military or war or some such and you always see them shooting fully-automatic M4’s? Yeah that’s bullshit. The Marine Corps infantry is only issued semiautomatic weapons, with the exception of the fully-automatic M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon) and heavier machine-guns.

Firing the semiautomatic M4 is horrifyingly disappointing, menacingly weak, and very very easy. It bruised my ego the first time I shot one, it was as loud as a 5.56 caliber cannon, and I had mild PTSD for the rest of the day whenever someone would show me much cooler fully automatic assault rifles in movies.

Our military needs to look dope as fuck, and you can’t look dope as fuck with semiautomatic weapons. I don’t normally get political here on Terminal Lance, but please urge your congressman to stop doing whatever the fuck it is he does and fix this growing problem with our armed forces.

On an unrelated but equally important note, I will be in Oceanside tomorrow at Barnes & Noble! Come by and say what’s up, I’ll be signing things and looking sexy.