As announced earlier, Chip Bok, Jeff Keane, Rick Kirkman, Mike Peters, Mike Luchovich, Walt Handlesman, Stephan Pastis, and Tom Richmond are visiting wounded troops in Washington D.C. and Germany. Stars and Stripes has a write up of their visit to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
The trip is sponsored by The National Cartoonists Society and United Service Organizations.
Correction: The artists who made the trip were changed up from previous announcements. According to Tom Richmond, the final group includes: Jeff Bacon, Jeff Keane, Mike Peters, Chip Bok, Stephan Pastis, Rick Kirkman, Bruce Higdon and Tom Richmond.
Here is an article from STARS AND STRIPES
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=57833
Interestingly enough, the article doesn’t mention Tom, Mike Luchovich, Stephan, or Walt Handlesman. Anybody think the AP will pick up this story?
Tom Richmond mentioned some changes in the folks who were taking that trip on his blog….
“The final group of artists has changed a little due to various scheduling conflict. Our group includes the man behind this effort and several others bringing cartoonists to military hospitals all over the U.S., Jeff Bacon (â??Broadsideâ?, Naval Times) NCS president Jeff Keane (â?Family Circusâ?), Mike Peters (â?Mother Goose and Grimmâ?, editorial cartoonist), Chip Bok (editorial cartoonist), Stephan Pastis (â?Pearls Before Swineâ?), Rick Kirkman (â?Baby Bluesâ?), Bruce Higdon (â?Punderstatementsâ?, freelance cartoonist), and myself (bum). Quite a group.”
Thanks Stacy for catching that. I’ve updated the post with a correction and a link to Tom’s blog where that announcement was made.
Thanks for the mention, Alan.
Somehow I managed to be the invisible man on this trip. Not only am I not mentioned in this article, but the American Armed Forces Radio (meaning media) did a short video news story which I managed to completely miss as well. I was allowed to carry Stephan Pastis’ luggage however.
That’s a joke, BTW. The reporters and video people followed the other 4 artists during our day at Landstuhl. I don’t care about being mentioned in print or any coverage of the event. I didn’t do it for the publicity. It’s was an inspiring experience, and the group of cartoonists we had was terrific.
I’ll have a full report on my blog next week.
It’s a tragedy that Tom wasn’t mentioned in the article, nor shown in the video. Quite frankly, he was one of the stars of the show, drawing countless caricatures of the troops with breathtaking artistry.
Probably the reason he isn’t shown or mentioned is that you could never see him because of the troops crowded around him. I’m surprised his arm didn’t fall off by the end of the week.
I also think the article and video overlooked Stephan Pastis, whose cartoons were received with absolute glee by Pearls fans, and in case you didn’t already know, there are a lot of them.
All the cartoonists were wonderful to see in action. You only had to look at the faces of the subjects to see how delighted they were with the visit by the NCS. We hope to continue this effort at Landstuhl and several other sites around the world.
This only confirms my suspicion that Tom Richmond doesn’t really exist!
Kudos to all who participated in that. Very cool. I look forward to reading more about it on Tom’s BLOG.
It really is a shame that the S&S didn’t even include a list of all the names. They had it all. They even ran a 2-minute video story on American Forces Network that didn’t tag names to Mike Peters’ or Jeff Keane’s interviews. But, as Tom said, we didn’t do it for the coverage. We certainly felt that the smiles and laughs from the troops was plenty.
Ditto on Jeff Bacon’s read of Tom’s contribution. He consistently had a long line awaiting his caricature treatment, and he left them all laughing. Don’t let Tom’s humility fool you, he not only carried Stephan’s bags, but carried me piggyback when my feet hurt.
I can’t say enough about how rewarding the trip was, and what a great group of guys it was my privilege to travel with. All pros and terrific people.
It was my honor to carry you piggyback on the trip, Rick. I just wish you would have laid off the schnitzel as you were getting heavy toward the end.
Seriously, the smiles on the faces and the laughter of the soldiers, both wounded and on the medical staff of the centers we visited, were more than adequate reward for me for whatever meager efforts I was able to do on the trip. It’s pretty hard to be concerned with getting attention for doing a bunch of silly doodles when you are staring into the face of a young soldier who gave one of more of his or her limbs for our country.
Wiley, you sound like some of my wife’s friends from back in her hometown. I seldom visited with her or the kids on summer trips to her parents place as summers are crazy for me work-wise, and she was accused of making me up entirely. When I finally did visit, I told everyone I was an actor she hired to play her non-existent husband. Nobody bought that as they figured if Anna was going to hire someone to pretend to be her husband, she’d have gotten someone better looking.
I’m still not convinced, “Tom”. And I’m not so sure about that Kirkman guy either!