Author: Maximilian

This strip is something I’m sure a few of you have encountered. You tell someone you’re a Marine or you find out they’re from a different branch, then all of the sudden the conversation turns into them trying to prove how big their dick is. This strip came to mind over a conversation I had with an airman at WonderCon this weekend. It went something like this:

Dude wearing full tri-color cammies walks by the table, my vet center compadre sitting next to me tells me he is a veteran. I ask the man what branch, he tells me Air Force. My response is something along the lines of, “Air Force? Oh hey that’s cool too, I mean my comic is more of a Marine thing but I’m sure you’d find it funny also, you should check it out”.

This apparently offended him, because he quickly pulled his dick out and asked to see mine and a ruler. Okay, that didn’t happen, but he basically said everything in the 2nd panel of today’s comic. His girlfriend then reassured me that “Your Corpsmen went to him for help in Iraq!” My response was something like, “Okay, that’s cool.” I wasn’t sure why he was so offended, I wonder if he does that to every Marine he talks to.

Anyway, I’d like to take a moment to recap on WonderCon.

WonderCon was a lot of fun, and I’d like to thank everyone that came out and stopped by to say hi. It was great finally getting to meet fans and talk to people. I feel like I’ve been largely anonymous to most of you, with the exception of the photos on the site and the Toys for Tots videos, people don’t really know me that well. Well, hopefully those of you that I saw this weekend can confirm to your friends that I am in fact a real person. I posted a ton of photos on Facebook and spammed the hell out of the status update. Here’s some of the more memorable photos from the Con.

This guy made my entire Friday complete. Having just put up the WonderCon strip some 12 hours prior, I couldn’t help but shout with excitement when I saw him pass my table. I knew I had to get a photo with him, so I did just that.

Oh yeah, did I mention I met Rudy fucking-Reyes!? Yeah, the one and only Rudy Reyes came by the Vet Center table and started talking to my compatriots. I hadn’t noticed, and while taking a bite of my sandwich my wife slapped my arm and pointed to my left. With a mouth full of food I nearly choked and dropped everything I was doing to get a moment to talk to Rudy. I managed to get his attention and told him about the comic. His buddy James, also from 1st Recon, was apparently a big fan of the comic and I managed to get him and Rudy to pose with me for this one:

I suddenly felt very small in the wake of these two’s He-Man-like physiques…

They were both great guys, and it definitely made my entire weekend worthwhile.

Oh, and I know how much you all loved the Princess Leia booth…

I don’t mean to come off the wrong way here, but there’s a reason I don’t walk around shirtless. There are plenty of girls that could pull this off, but these representatives from the “Princess Leia Slave Outfit Club” definitely aren’t helping their cause. To be honest, I’d rather see the poor girl in the middle wearing that outfit.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. I hope those I did meet enjoyed it as well. ComicCon would be the next goal, being in the heart of Marine-dom: San Diego, CA. However, I think they’re already sold out in terms of exhibitor tables–so unfortunately that won’t happen this year.

EDIT:

As any of you that follow the Facebook fan page know by now, I had a run in with fate at WonderCon today and was able to get this photo:

This photo completely made my day. We saw him walk passed our table, and I knew I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. I shouted out (for the first and possibly only time in my life):

“Batman! BATMAN!”

The runt teenager turned to me with his entire upper half in response and I said to him, “I have to get a photo with you!”

He was fine with the notion, as I’m sure he’d been getting requests all day, so I handed the camera to my wife and she got this premonition of a photo–this culmination of God’s will embedded onto the CCD sensor of my Sony a200. My day had officially been made, and I had to share it with all of you.

***Original post***

As many of you know by now, I am attending WonderCon today through Sunday. No, this isn’t Marine Corps humor, but it is funny.

I’ve mentioned WonderCon a number of times, but people still seem to be fairly lost about it. Here’s the details:

WonderCon is a comic book convention in San Francisco. It is basically the same thing as San Diego’s ComicCon, but it is in San Francisco. It is being held at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco, today (Friday) until Sunday. It costs money to enter, I don’t know what the ticket prices are but I don’t think it’s that much.

I will be there all three days, and I will be updating my Twitter and the Facebook Fan Page regularly at the event. You’ll be able to find me at the Concord Veteran’s Center booth. I’ll be the guy in the Terminal Lance shirt, much like you see in today’s comic.

Maybe, if we’re lucky, Batman will join us as well.

You ever notice how whenever you come back from block leave, your Platoon Sergeant will always try to make it seem like it’s some grand secret that there’s going to be a company-wide urinalysis? Well, if you haven’t caught on by now, every time you come back from leave, you’ll get the good ol’ piss test. If you’re unlucky enough to be an NCO, you’ll probably end up on “cock-watch”, or the unfortunate duty of watching people urinate all morning.

What’s even more astonishing than the standard-issue piss test are the idiots that actually pop on it. You were on leave, you knew you were gonna get tested when you got back, and yet you still decided to smoke or snort something. That’s just one of those “fucked yourself” situations.

In other news, I’m obviously back from my self-declared week off. Spring Break was in full effect last week so I decided that I was going to take advantage of it–not to mention I had company over the entire time anyway. Expect the site to be back in action and back on the regular schedule of Tuesday and Friday.

I’ve mentioned it before many times, but for those of you that haven’t heard, I’ll be at WonderCon in San Francisco this weekend with the Concord Vet Center. Come by our booth and say hi, you could get some free Terminal Lance shit, I’ve got a few t-shirts I’ll be signing autographs for whomever wants such things.

Oh and lastly, for those of you that are into such things; please feel free to follow me on Twitter @TLCplMax, and if you haven’t already, we’re up to 21,000 Facebook fans–so become a fan!

Also, check out this fan photo uploaded by Andrew Morris on the Facebook fan page.

You laugh, but the kid on the left killed that tiger himself–with nothing more than a cigarette lighter and a shower-shoe. The red blood and flesh of the dismembered feline can still be seen on the inside of his garment.

Every Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps has heard of LCpl Schmuckatelli. He’s the same Lance Corporal that you’ve heard in every safety brief, every ass chewing and every straight talk. This is the Lance Corporal responsible for everything wrong in the Marine Corps, he’s the very reason every regulation exists–because Lance Corporal Schmuckatelli went out into town and fucked it up for everyone else.

For those of you outside of our little secret club here, Schmuckatelli is a generic name used by higher-ups to describe any hypothetical Lance Corporal that goes and makes an ass of himself. It doesn’t matter what he’s doing this or next weekend, but I can guarantee he’s doing something stupid. So remember, the next time your libo gets secured or you think it’s stupid that you need a battle buddy to go to the store–remember, you have Lance Corporal Schmuckatelli to thank.

There’s some big things coming up for Terminal Lance soon. Only one of which I will continue to harp about until it happens for now.

WONDERCON

I’ve mentioned it a few times now, but I want to make sure it’s clear that I will be at WonderCon in San Francisco, CA from April 1st to the 3rd. I’ll be there handing out some stuff and signing whatever items (or whatever…) you put in front of me. I’ll be there with the Concord Vet Center, so look for their booth and you’ll be sure to find me.

There’s a couple other big things that I could mention, but alas, I will keep them to myself for now.

I haven’t decided if I’ll put up a comic next week. It’s Spring Break, and I could use a break. I suppose you’ll find out next week. Stay frosty, motivators.

I will tell you, as I told my wife when we exited the theater on Sunday after seeing the new film Battle: Los Angeles, that this film was “moto-boner food”. Yes, a delectable snack for your moto-boner to feast off of and gain energy greater than even the largest BFC Monster could offer.

I read no reviews going into the film, I knew they would be resoundingly negative–as most high-budget sci-fi films are. Ebert was rather harsh, I felt, giving said film only half a star. As he put it:

“Battle: Los Angeles” is noisy, violent, ugly and stupid. Its manufacture is a reflection of appalling cynicism on the part of its makers, who don’t even try to make it more than senseless chaos. Here’s a science-fiction film that’s an insult to the words “science” and “fiction,” and the hyphen in between them. You want to cut it up to clean under your fingernails.

And that’s just the first paragraph!

My feelings toward the film weren’t nearly as biting. I feel like as Marines, we automatically appreciate any film that does us some good light, and Battle: Los Angeles does this well. This is where I felt Battle: Los Angeles succeeds–it’s relatively realistic portrayal of modern Marines. Aaron Eckhart was a good choice to play a typical hard-ass hollywood Marine–though I didn’t quite get how he was retiring as a Staff Sergeant (he said he’d been in for 20 years). He was apparently awarded for whatever awful incident happened in Afghanistan, so we had no reason to believe he had been busted down.

Outside of this though, I had two main small gripes–the fact that they kept referring to the FOB (Forward Operating Base) as the “F.O.B.” (eff-oh-bee). I suppose there may have been some kind of Asian misunderstanding–but in real life, we say “fob”. The second being their dispersion in the beginning alley scene, which any infantry Marine can testify was beyond absurd.

Otherwise, the film was really what I expected a movie called “Battle: Los Angeles” to be. It was a battle, and it took place in Los Angeles. There were aliens, there were Marines, things got fucked up. I actually appreciated the complete lack of a coherent story–I mean come on, why waste our time? No one needed to fall in love, no kids needed to kick a velociraptor out a window with her gymnastics skills, and no one needed to explain why the aliens were there. If you were going into Battle: Los Angeles expecting something thought provoking, I encourage you to learn to read movie titles.

That said, the film was complete boner-food. Food for your boner. Specifically, your moto-boner. It will get you hard, jerk you off, and even cup the balls. Oorah?

I won’t say that there’s no credibility to the argument that grunts should have crossed rifles whilst others should not. Then again, I am an 0351, so surely my opinion is skewed. However, I believe the entire point of the crossed-rifles is “Every Marine A Rifleman”, and thus is meant to differentiate the Marine Corps from other branches more than to be taken literally. Now, much like Garcia here, I don’t personally care–I think crossed Lance Corporal chevrons on my Lance Corporal chevrons would fulfill my needs all the same.

I won’t go as far as to say that every Marine is in fact a Rifleman, because it’s just not true. For instance, I wouldn’t expect an 1171 Water Dog to perform the job of an 0311, and rightly so. However, the rhetoric more applies to a principle of the Marine Corps as a whole. Whether or not it’s actually true, I won’t bother getting into.

In other news, I got this email from a Marine today that made my day and I wanted to share it with you all. His name and email will remain anonymous, but here’s what he had to say regarding fraternization in the chow hall:

Hey man,

When I saw your female LCpl eating with a MSgt comic I just had to print it out and put it in the chow hall on KBay. I see that shit EVERY DAY.

So I did it for lunch, put it up without anyone seeing, snapped the pic, then sat down to eat. I ate right by the salad bar so I could watch and see if anyone noticed.

Sounds too good to be true, but not even 10 minutes after I put it up 2 Gunny’s walked in with a female (I think she was a Corporal, they all are….) and saw it. The gunny made a big fuss and asked the lady scanning the IDs if she knew about it, then he went to talk to the chow hall manager who I believe was a MSgt.

I didn’t hear the conversation, but as they got back to where the trays are I heard the MSgt ask “Well…its true. Why the hell are you two eating with a female Corporal?”

I almost died.

Epic Win, my friend.

This email made my day, I always like seeing this kind of interaction between my work and Marines. Keep it up. If you have some awesome story like this, feel free to tell me about it by clicking the “Contact” tab at the top of the screen. I don’t always have time to respond to every email, but I do read them all.

I would also like to remind people that I’ll be at WonderCon with the Concord Vet Center on April 1-3rd. We’ll have some T-shirts and other things for me to sign and give away. I’ll give you more details soon, but for all of you in the Bay Area, I hope to see you there! You don’t have to be a comic nerd to attend, but it will probably help.

The reason I decided not to make fun of “The King’s Speech” is really because I haven’t seen it. I did, however, see last year’s Best Picture winner, “The Hurt Locker,” and it made me want to gouge out my prostate with an MRE spoon. This isn’t the first time I’ve brought up Kathryn Bigelow’s wretched excuse for an Iraq film, but it is the first time I’ve brought it up in any illustrated form.

I could go on for days about why I hated The Hurt Locker. For any of you reading that don’t understand the unabridged rage I feel when it is mentioned, I’ll just tell you that beneath the shallow characters, the worthless storyline, the poorly researched military aspects and the tepid underlying themes–what bothered me the most is that Gears of War didn’t come out until 2006, and you can clearly see one of the soldiers playing it on an XBOX 360–a system that didn’t come out until 2005.

The film takes place in 2004.

As far as the Oscars went, I was happy to see Natalie Portman win best actress for Black Swan. I personally loved that film, and while I was cheering for The Social Network to win Best Picture, I was secretly hoping Black Swan would pull an underdog. I absolutely loved David Fincher’s The Social Network, though; and although Inception had a fairly successful Oscar night, I think it lost it’s chance at winning Best Picture by being largely forgotten by the time the fall rolled around. Summer releases are ideal for blockbusters, but they don’t tend to stick in peoples’ minds come Oscar season.

In the end though, what I was most upset about the Oscars this year was the fact that the baby in Natalie Portman’s womb isn’t mine.

Drill Instructors have a kind of magical, cartoon quality about them. The animated characters that run around yelling at recruits all day have a certain kinship and likeness to many of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons. I’m fairly certain I once saw a DI pull a large wooden mallet out of his back and smack a recruit in the face with it.

But really, DI’s are always fun to laugh at in retrospect. Their exaggerated movements, gestures and voices create someone that is no longer human–but rather, a character. Love them or hate them, I guarantee you’ve done a DI impression at some point in your life (if you’re a Marine). The trademark frog voice and knife-hands are as unforgettable afterward as they are feared in recruit training.

I’ve been out for about 10 months now, and knife-hands still get me every time. Seriously… knife-hands? Possibly the most absurd and uniquely Marine Corps thing anyone’s ever shouted at me with the raging passion of a thousand hungry baboons is simply, “KNIFE HAAAAAAAANDS!”

Oh, and high-five for breaking the 20,000 Facebook fan mark! Lets keep it up! I know there’s more than 20,000 Marines in the Corps…

Someone mentioned this video on Facebook just after I posted this comic. For those of you who don’t fully understand the idea of “The Swarm,” here it is in full swing.

Perhaps this strip won’t ring true with everyone, but I always thought it was rather curious while I was aboard al Asad air base in 2009 to see this sight; junior enlisted females could often be seen enjoying chow with Staff NCO’s and other higher ranking individuals. However, you’d be hard-pressed to find a male Lance Corporal enjoying the same treatment from higher. One can speculate endlessly the reasons behind such events, but I will leave that up to the reader to interpret.

Take this as you will, but it’s an honest observation from my time during my 2nd deployment. I never really noticed this happening back stateside, but a lot of things don’t happen back stateside.

In other news, I had announced previously that I would be featured in the quarterly arts journal Line Zero; and it has since rung true. Perhaps not a journal that will appeal to everyone reading; but if you’re from Seattle or just a fan of the indie art scene, it might be worth checking out!

Also, don’t forget that you can find exclusive, original Terminal Lance strips weekly in the Marine Corps Times on newsstands every Monday (Tuesday for Hawaii from what I remember).

One last thing. This Marine is my hero:

This photo added by Dave Hines on the Terminal Lance Facebook page just made me so happy. A Lance Corporal with a full stack and two hash marks. Looks like it’s time to end that contract, broseph.

With the exception of the characters of Abe and Garcia, this is actually a true story. I remember my first patrol in 2007, fresh out of CAX and ready to spot anything on the road that was worth spotting. Unfortunately, what they don’t tell you is that there’s trash everywhere. There was no organized trash cleanup going on amongst the Iraqi people when I was there; just leftover piss bottles, MRE bags and anything else the Iraqi’s didn’t want. Aside from trash, there were also craters and “suspicious” dirt marks lining every road.

Eventually the uncertain feeling of looming death goes away and with our daily outings into Zaidon it became clear what was supposed to be there and what wasn’t, but I would say that the first week or two were butt-clenchingly terrifying every time we went over a bump or drove next to something I hadn’t seen before.

There are some big things in loom for Terminal Lance. Notably, I will be at Wondercon in San Francisco April 1-3! Obviously there’s not a whole lot of Marines around the Bay Area, but those of you that may be around here I look forward to seeing. In conjunction with the Concord Vet Center, we’ll possibly be doing some giveaways or raffles or some shit. Either way, it’ll be awesome and I’ll be there–dressed as Captain America. Okay that last part isn’t true, but only because I’ll be representing Terminal Lance, not Marvel Comics.

There are other things in store, but nothing I can really talk about right now…