Busy, busy, busy already in the new year. Above is a small spot illustration I did for On Patrol magazine of USO president and CEO Sloan Gibson. On Patrol is the magazine of the USO, and the Winter issue features coverage of the USO sponsored NCS cartoonist’s trip to Germany, Kuwait and Iraq back in October. The website linked above is not yet updated to include the winter issue’s content, but the magazine features a great cover by Michael Ramirez, some pictures of us in action (I mean drawing… not the kind of action the people we drew are used to) and an article that is mostly made up of a “journal” of the trip written by me. Most of my contributions to the article are by way of revised versions of my blog posts on the trip: See Prelude, Washington DC/Germany, Kuwait, Iraq.

I might as well take the opportunity to once again thank the USO for sponsoring our trip to the Middle-East. In a year that featured a ridiculous amount of traveling and speaking for me, including trips to England, Colombia, and Australia, the USO trip was really something special.

Arriving at the airport in Kuwait City, I was prepared for some major culture shock. Traveling in Europe is one thing… usually you can figure out the meaning of things like signs based on the common nature of the Latin based languages, and they all use the same basic alphabetical charters which at least look familiar. Arabic, on the other hand, is totally indecipherable to one with no knowledge of the language. Every time I saw something written in Arabic I had the impulse to turn it upside down.

The Kuwait Airport

My fears were groundless. Almost every sign is Kuwait, especially road and direction signs, had English translations below. There was no shortage of western influences, either. The airport food court had a Burger King, McDonalds, and money other familiar fast food restaurants… and of course a Starbucks. (more…)