Sleep deprivation is one of those things that every Marine becomes intimately familiar with as early as the first few days of boot camp. All across the Corps, Marines are missing sleep for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they’re standing duty, or maybe on a night patrol training op. Perhaps they’re deployed and operating on the bare essentials to stay alive. Perhaps they’ve just been up all night binge drinking and playing Oblivion Remastered. Who knows.

Either way, Marines will adapt and overcome, rising to the occasion of any challenge, whether they’re rested or not.

This comic was a lot of fun to make, because I made it as part of a collaborative live demo workshop I did as the guest speaker of the Combat Art Symposium at the National Museum of the Marine Corps this past week. I walked through my process for finding a joke, beating out a punchline, and laying out the comic visually with the help of a room full of other really talented artists tossing out ideas and gags.

The Combat Art Symposium is a gathering of Combat Artists and other military artists across the spectrum of the military. I’ve been (loosely) affiliated with the Marine Corps Combat Art program ever since my 2009 deployment to Iraq, where I spent most of the trip photographing and sketching Marines across the country. It wasn’t until 2021 or so that I became an official Marine Corps “Combat Artist,” and it’s been really amazing getting to know the other artists in the community.

At the Symposium, we got a great behind-the-scenes look at the Marine Corps art collection and archives. It was a lot of fun and I’m glad I was able to go.

I’ll post more about the trip for subscribers on the official TL Patreon page for a behind-the-scenes look.