Terminal Lance

Terminal Lance is a bi-weekly webcomic by Terminal Lance Corporal Maximilian Uriarte, USMC. It draws on Uriarte's experiences as a Lance Corporal in the infantry. Think a Work Com, but set in the military.

Uriarte has also produced an animated short called Post, which bears the Terminal Lance brand but does not feature the same characters (or rather, if it does, it's hard to tell.)

Most of the humor is related to life in the Corps. Non-Marines are advised to have a reference (or a Marine friend to act as translator) handy for all the acronyms and expressions that appear.


Tropes used in Terminal Lance include:

"...90% of the time Marines tend to take the term “sound Reveille” a bit more literally than they should. They do, quite literally, yell the word “Reveille” repeatedly until everyone is awake."

Post contains examples of:

  • Animated Adaptation: Uriarte was required to produce an animated short for a class, and decided to base it on the same experiences that the online comics draw from.
  • Art Shift: From Uriarte's normal style. This one features much more simplified, Super-Deformed characters, presumably to make animating much easier.
  • Bathroom Stall Graffiti: One of the Marines draws a penis on the wall, while giggling uncontrollably.
  • Book Ends: The film begins and ends the same way: With a shift change, a Marine tapping the butt of the machine gun, and sighing.
  • A Date with Rosie Palms: One guard does this twice, while his partner is sleeping.
  • The Guards Must Be Crazy: Primary theme of the short. They appear to spend all of ten seconds actually standing watch, and the rest of their shift finding various ways to pass the time.
  • Heroes Love Dogs: Or at least, very bored sentries love any distraction from the monotony of their day, which would include stray dogs passing nearby.
  • Shout-Out: To a Youtube video about a Marine standing watch, called "Momma Dog"
  • Splash of Color: The entire film is in a gray-scale color palette, except for a bottle of urine.
  • Super-Deformed: All of the Marines appear to be about three feet tall with huge heads. Effectively a step up from being stick figures.
  • Toilet Humour: At one point, one of the Marines is shown pissing into an empty bottle. Shortly after, they decide to see how far they can throw it.
  • Truth in Television: According to some of the YouTube comments on the film, quite a bit of this stuff happens in Real Life, if not all in one shift.
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