General
October 30th, 2009 | Posted in General
Late on the evening of Oct. 19th our band of ten landed at COB Speicher in Tikrit, Iraq. Formerly it was FOB Speicher (forward operating base) but because of it’s size was reassigned as a COB (contingency operating base). It was also formerly Al Sahra Airfield under Saddam. Tikrit, of course, is famous for being the hometown of Saddam Hussein. Getting off the plane it was the first of many surreal moments… hard to believe a bunch of middle aged cartoonists were standing on the sands of Tikrit, Iraq. Stephan Pastis and I turned to each other frequently during the next few days to say… READ MORE
October 29th, 2009 | Posted in General
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… READ MORE
October 27th, 2009 | Posted in General
The 2009 NCS Cartoonist USO Tour band members: Jeff Bacon of “Broadside” and “Greenside” Chip Bok syndicated editorial cartoonist Bruce Higdon of Army Times, Army Magazine, Soldiers Magazine, and Stars and Stripes Jeff Keane of “The Family Circus” Rick Kirkman of “Baby Blues” Stephan Pastis of “Pearls Before Swine” Mike Peters of “Mother Goose and Grimm” Michael Ramirez of Investors Business Daily Tom Richmond of MAD Magazine Garry Trudeau of “Doonesbury” Our 8 day USO tour began at a Washington DC area hotel on Wednesday, October 14th where most of our band met, had a quick dinner and talked about our upcoming odyssey. As usual… READ MORE
October 26th, 2009 | Posted in General
A Little Background Last October eight Cartoonists from the National Cartoonists Society went on a trip to Landstuhl, Germany with a stop in Washington DC to visit wounded soldiers at Walter Reed, the Bathesda Naval Medical Center, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and the Ramstien Air Force Base terminal and staging facility. You can read all about that trip here and here. The cartoonists were NCS president Jeff Keane (The Family Circus), Jeff Bacon (Naval Times/Broadside), Bruce Higdon (Army cartoonist), Rick Kirkman (Baby Blues), Mike Peters (Mother Goose and Grimm), Chip Bok (editorial cartoonist), Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine) and myself. The entire trip was funded… READ MORE
October 23rd, 2009 | Posted in General
We just landed in Washington DC from our trip overseas to meet with and draw for U.S. troops in Germany and the Middle East. Now that we have safely left the area, we can reveal where we were. After leaving Germany we traveled to Kuwait City, Kuwait and drew in several FOB camps including Camp Buerhing and Camp Virginia, traveling by road vehicle. On Monday we flew out to Iraq on a military plane and spent the next two days visiting FOB camps like Speicher, Q-West, Marez, Victory, Liberty and Slayer near some well know places like Tikrit, Kirkuk, Mosul and Baghdad. The above video… READ MORE
October 22nd, 2009 | Posted in General
Our NCS Cartoonists USO tour is almost a wrap. Today we depart on the long trip home, leaving the combat zone after several days of hopping about drawing the troops with the USO. Yesterday we had three separate stops about a large base complex and the response was really overwhelming. Two of the meet and greets were with the whole group and then we again split up into two groups for the last signing. The soldiers and personnel we have visited really seem to be glad we came and¬¨‚Ćalmost everyone who came up to us after waiting in a long line started out by thanking… READ MORE
October 20th, 2009 | Posted in General
While I’m somewhat incommunicado on the Persian Gulf USO tour here is another segment of the infamous 1993 live caricature demo video. This time the subject is Jaleel White, who is best known (okay… only known) for his nerdy character Steve Urkel from the TV Show “Family Matters”. READ MORE
October 18th, 2009 | Posted in General
I was using “the facilities” in the Frankfurt airport while waiting to board our plane for the Persian Gulf when I was once again surprised by the “little differences” between Europe and the U.S. Germany has some of the greatest engineering on planet earth, but when it comes to making their toilet seats into robotic, self cleaning, spinning disks of doom they might have gone too far. I was in the middle of relieving myself when the commode I was using suddenly came to life and started doing the hokey pokey as shown: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_4HEtD6eBk[/youtube] I was unnerved but didn’t panic and hose down the area.… READ MORE
