A Thank You from a soldier

As a soldier, getting a simple thank you from a stranger is one of the most rewarding things that can happen.  Going to Tim Horton’s and already having a cup of coffee paid for - before you even get to the counter is another example of how so many people really do care. I didn’t even get a chance to say thanks. 

I take seriously the fact that when I wear my uniform I represent all of my comrades and most importantly the friends that we all have lost overseas.  When someone says thank you, they are saying it to all soldiers and words cannot describe how much that means to us and to me 

One particular thank you that I was fortunate enough to be part of was in March of 2011.  After the holidays can be a difficult time in Afghanistan, but this particular thank you put a lot of smiles on a lot of peoples’ faces. 

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment along with some great celebrities visited us in Kandahar.  Brian Burke, Andi Petrillo, Arlene Dickinson, and JP Veitch - who is a huge supporter of my regiment, shook our hands. A couple of great bands, Default and Glass Tiger put on a show for us. There was also a group of former NHL’ers including: Lanny McDonald and Tiger Williams, all of whom came to out to show their support.  Oh and of course the Stanley Cup was there too. 

It was, however, a guy that I didn’t know - that was the guy I would really liked to have met.  At the time I didn’t even know he was in the country, when a giant hockey mask was presented by him, to the forces to be displayed at Canada House in KAF.  I just though wow, what a nice helmet.  I am a huge hockey fan - as many of us are in the forces - and the thing I didn’t know was that he had painted a few more masks than the one I saw on the stage that night. I had seen them before: Carey Price, Brent Johnson, Brian Elliott, Anti Niemi, Jaroslav Halak and Mike Smith to name a few; all wear masks done by this artist.  Not only that, some more significant masks like Carey Price’s Remembrance Day mask and of course Trooper Mark Wilsons inspired Soldier Tribute Mask as well.  His name is David Arrigo and to you David, I say - THANK YOU.

Adam Beebe (Canadian Forces)

My New Mission

In 1993 and in grade 11 my plan was to finish high school and sign up with The Canadian Forces but in 1994 that came to a sudden stop

In April of 1994 I was walking home from the Bayshore mall and was attacked by three guys and stabbed 13 times. The two most severe wounds were in my upper left leg and I had to have major surgery as I lost half of my muscle in my leg.  I basically had to learn to walk all over again and for many years I used it as an excuse to be lazy.

Up until about two years ago I couldn't walk over 1km without having severe leg cramps in my left leg and a lot of pain.  On occasion to it would affect my work as I would have to get up and stretch it out so that it wouldn't cramp up.

So that night after the guys who attacked me took off I was lying on the sidewalk losing a lot of blood and two off duty fire fighters happen to be driving by that night and saved my life.  They also held the muscle in my leg together long enough that I didn't end up losing my entire left leg.

My biggest weight over 340lbs on the left meeting Gene Simmons

Since that day I have always had a huge respect for first responders and used to randomly bring tins of Tim Hortons coffee to fire halls as a way of saying thank you for saving my life.

In March of 2007 I had heard there was a Tim Hortons being opened in Afghanistan and a friend of mine was deployed and I asked him if he had to pay for his coffee.  Thus "Tim Hortons for our troops" was launched.

In 2010 someone sent me a news article about MCpl Jody Mitic.  A member of the Canadian Forces who had lost both his lower legs in Afghanistan after stepping on an IED.  Jody refused to let his injuries stop him and has participated in numerous 5km runs on prosthetic legs.

It was after hearing his story and becoming friends with him on Face book that I decided to stop using my injury as an excuse to be lazy.  I started walking a little bit more and got to the point where the leg cramps were gone and I started to get some strength back in my leg.

On February 28th, 2012 I posted a Facebook status that said "Tomorrow is day one" as I had enough of making excuses and was going to make a huge change in my lifestyle.  A friend of mine Chris McArdle said "Me too" and with that the "Weight loss challenge in support of Military Minds" was launched.

My most recent photo day 1 & day 80 of the TASWLC

So here I am 84 days later and I feel like a different person.  I have lost almost 50lbs, go to the gym 3-5 times a week and am hooked on this new lifestyle.

I've received emails from people saying that I've inspired them to start doing the same and attempt to get fit.  If you had of told me that a year ago I would have thought you were insane but I am ok with that.

That being said, I am very happy to announce that I have a new mission.  I am going to be applying to The Calgary Highlanders reserve unit here in Calgary, Alberta. 

I know it's not going to be easy but I am more determined than I have ever been and will "NEVER QUIT"


I want to send a special shout out to Jody Mitic, Paul Franklin, Mark Fuchko and every other Wounded Warrior who never let their injuries get the best of them. You have inspired in ways I could never be able to express on on a blog here. 

Loops For The Troops

The Loops for the Troops Father’s Day Run/Walk is a time to honour those who have made and continue to make the ultimate sacrifice in the name of freedom.

The event was founded by Michael Hornburg in honour of his son, Corporal Nathan Hornburg who was killed on active duty in Afghanistan on September 24, 2007. The Loops for the Troops event is in support of our Canadian military and first response services, veterans, their families and in remembrance of our fallen who paid the Ultimate Sacrifice.  Since Nathan was a regular runner, the idea of a public run in his honour seemed appropriate. A few weeks later, the ball was rolling.

"Nathan was out there trying to serve the larger community and we've got his example right in front of us. All of us . . . (can) carry on his mission."

For this, our fifth year, we invite supporters to come watch or challenge the troops and first responders to a 5K, 10K or Military Mile in North Glenmore Park. Bring the family and check out the military equipment on display from Edmonton and listen to speeches from some local and military dignitaries.

Join us Sunday, June 17, 2012 at North Glenmore Park to support of the troops and first responders who ensure our day-to-day freedom, both at home and abroad.

Location
The Calgary race will be in the same great location near the Glenmore Reservoir for another year

I have just registered for this and inviting everyone I know in the Calgary area to do this with me.

REGISTER NOW on The Running Room website 

Not in Calgary?

If you are not in Calgary and still want to do this they have what is called "Running In Spirit" which you can also sign up for on their site and for anyone who does this, we'll ask that you send in a photo of you walking/running 5km (3.2 miles) on Fathers day.  Just go to The Running Room site and click Register Now on the "Running In Spirit" section.

TEAM THANK A SOLDIER PARTICIPANTS

Dave Murphy - Calgary, Alberta
Chris McArdle - Mission, B.C
Dallas Craik - (From Calgary, Alberta) will be Running In Spirit in London, England
Shawn MCD - Calgary
Chris Jeapes - Toronto, Ontario
Emma E. Jeapes - Toronto, Ontario
JoAnne Brydon - Toronto, Ontario

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Bikes On The Streets Of Paris

We have been in Paris for six days and these are some of the bikes you will find on almost every street -- From Champ de Mars near the Eiffel Tower, to the French Pantheon and the Latin Quarter to the high winding streets of Montmartre.


Click images to enlarge.

This cool old Harley was along Rue Amber near the Paris Opera.

This National Motos Honda Varadaro was parked just outside the
 Justice Building in front of the French Pantheon.

This Yamaha was outside a neighborhood cafe near the Eiffel Tower.

It is really beautiful in Paris in May
with lots of spring flowers - 45 to 70 (F)

Leave No Vet Behind

Today I was sent this site and asked if I would post it on our blog page and I didn't hesitate please take a moment to watch the video below and visit the Leave No Vet Behind website.

Thank You

VISIT THE LEAVE NO VET BEHIND WEBSITE

ARE YOU ON TWITTER?  Find your Member of Parliament and send them a tweet! 

Thank A Soldier T-Shirts & Bumpersticker giveaway

A month ago we launched T-Shirts & Bumper stickers at the request of our page members and if two months we have sold twenty four of them and wanted to come up with a way to get the word out.  As you know we do not take any donations or have any sponsors so the small costs associated with running www.thankasoldier.net will be funded through the sale of these shirts & bumper stickers. ($1.00 from every shirt sold goes to those costs)

After that is taken care of any remaining proceeds we will be donating to Military Minds.

Every time this post reaches 1000 shares on Facebook & 1000 RTs on Twitter we will give away one shirt and one bumper sticker of your choice.

You can also order these items at the links below.

Click here to order any of the above shirts 

Click here to order our bumper stickers

THERE IS NO SCHEDULED END TO THIS GIVE AWAY EVERY TIME IT HITS 1000 SHARES ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER WE WILL GIVE AWAY ONE OF EACH.

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS CLICK SHARE

WINTER SOLDIER #9 Cover

From Marvel's August 2012 solicitations:

WINTER SOLDIER #9
ED BRUBAKER (w) • MICHAEL LARK (a)
Cover by STEVE EPTING
• Black Widow’s past has caught up to her! Can Bucky save her? And what happens if he can’t?
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$2.99


This was done much the same way as the cover for issue #8. Primarily standard colored line art but with some areas painted on top. And if you're thinking that the guy on the cover doesn't look like Bucky, you are correct. It's not Bucky. 

Online Auction for Military Minds

Starting today until the end of May we have some items for auction to raise funds for Military Minds.

Shipping is included in the starting bid and 100% of proceeds (minus shipping) will be going to Military Minds, we have a Camo Leafs Jersey, signed Kandahar Hockey League jersey, A Tim Hortons roll up the rim Kandahar cup and other items.

I will post the full size photos of the Kandahar Hockey League Jersey here as its hard to see on the auction page.

TO START BIDDING ON ANY OF THESE ITEMS GO TO THE AUCTION WEBSITE by clicking HERE

Click here to bid on this jersey 

 ARMY RUN Jersey - Click to bid 

Click here to bid 

Click here to bid

Click here to bid 

Click here to bid on this rare Tim Hortons Kandahar Hat & Roll up the rim cup 

To all the Military Moms of Thank A Soldier

I wanted to do something special this year for all the "Military Moms" of our Facebook page & that follow me on Twitter so for four days I posted status's asking Mom's to leave their names.  We heard from women who are serving in the military who are moms, mothers & grandmothers of soldiers and a few Gold Star Mothers in the U.S.A and several mothers of fallen Canadian soldiers.

I know there will be some that we have missed as they may have not of seen the status updates but we were able to get a lot of names on this photo.

Mothers Day isn't until May 13th, but I'm posting this today so that people have a chance to see it before Mothers Day incase they aren't near a computer.

If you would like to download a copy of the full photo click the image below and save it to your computer.  When posting to Facebook it shrinks the photo so the names are not visible.

Thank You all.............

CLICK HERE TO VIEW FULL SIZE IMAGE & DOWNLOAD

Note : Special shout out to Luis Rivera for designing the photo for us 

The Queens Diamond Jubilee Medal - Thank You

On May 10th , 2012 I received the Queens Diamond Jubilee Medal thanks to a Veteran with the Canadian Forces Mike Blais Rcr Cfds who now runs The Canadian Veterans Advocacy which is guided by the motto: "one veteran, one standard" and we will continue to advocate for all Canadian veterans until all veterans of all eras are treated equally.

I am truly humbled and honoured that he would submit me for a nomination to receive this and now that I’ve had 24 hours to let it sink in I wanted to put my thoughts on here.

First of all to every person who has joined any of my Facebook groups, followed me on Twitter, Watched a YouTube video of ours, sent in photos for The Gratitude Project, sent Tim Hortons certificates with our Coffee 4 Troops campaign, Shared a photo, signed the petition for the Canada Post stamp, video or post on our Facebook page I want to say THANK YOU. If it wasn’t for everyone taking part in all of this with me I would be “One guy on a page”

Every time I have ever done an interview with the media I always refer to “Thank A Soldier “ as “WE” not “I” as even though I’m the one person answering the emails and running the Facebook page it’s more of a community and I try and include everyone in everything I do whether the feedback is positive or negative.

Most Importantly to every member of our military past and present and their families that I have gotten to know in the last five years THANK YOU. I have learned so much from all of you and I am very thankful for that.

To all my friends that have lost loved ones serving that I have met in the last five years you have made me a better person. I have gained a whole new appreciation of family and how important it is. Yes, I loved my family always but meeting you have made me take nothing for granted that much more. Every one of you are in my thoughts and prayers always.  I truly feel all of our fallen heroes should get one of these medals also but every time that I wear it, I will wear it in memory of all our fallen heroes and their families.

I don’t do these things looking for recommendation or the spotlight however when they come from a nomination by Veterans I humbly accept them with honour. In October thanks to a nomination by Major John Haylock I will be Knighted into The Order Of St. George which also leaves me stuck for words. I am also inviting anyone who's a member of "Thank A Soldier" to come to the ceremony on October 13th, if you're interested in going you an R.S.V.P on the Facebook Event 

Again, I want to say Thank You to all my page members from every corner of the world I have no plans of stopping any time soon and am more determined than ever to make “Team Thank A Soldier” stronger than ever.

Dave Murphy – Calgary, Alberta

Lichtensteined!!

Sleeping Girl by Roy Lichtenstein

You may have heard about Roy Lichtenstein's painting Sleeping Girl fetching $44.8 million in a Sotheby's auction this week. I always find news about Lichtenstein's art interesting, not only because I am primarily a comic book artist, but also because I have the distinction of being one of the comic book artists that he swiped.

If you've ever taken an art history class (and probably even if you haven't) you most likely know the work of Roy Lichtenstein. He was one of a number of artists who rose to fame during the 60's pop art movement. As his Wikipedia entry says - "Roy Lichtenstein (October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was a prominent American pop artist... his work was heavily influenced by both popular advertising and the comic book style".

Lichtenstein's most famous paintings were based on comic book panels drawn by such giants as Jack Kirby, John Romita Sr., Russ Heath, and many others, almost always without attribution. Though these pieces were not exact copies, they were undeniably based specifically on work that other artists had created. This practice made him a highly controversial figure among the fine art world as well as comic book fandom. Lichtenstein had pretty much given up copying comic book panels by the time the 60s had come to end, though later in his career he did return to the practice somewhat by incorporating comic panels into larger works.

This brings us 1994 and a piece by Lichtenstein called Large Interior With Three Reflections. Lichtenstein used an image from an issue of The Avengers that I drew early in my career and incorporated it into part of the large mural. Let's start with his original preliminary sketch for that portion of the image:

... and here's a detail of the panel from Avengers #358 (January 1993) from which it was taken (penciled by me and inked by Tom Palmer):

Notice that the headpiece does not appear in the sketch. Lichtenstein also made other changes to the source material as he progressed to the drawing stage, most notably the direction of the strands of hair:

Up to this point I think it could have been debatable whether my image was the inspiration for that section of the mural, but in the finished painting the headpiece is back in place, leaving little doubt:

More on the creation of this piece, including the confirmation of my Avengers art as the source material (for that small portion of it) can be found HERE.

This was all brought to my attention originally by David Barsalou, who has an ongoing project identifying the source material for all of Lichtenstein's pieces. The comparison image below is from Barsalou's Flickr photostream.

In school when I was studying Lichtenstein in Art History classes, I could have never dreamed that in a few short years he would actually be swiping some of my art. The whole thing is surreal to me and I'm not even really sure how I feel about it, but I've got to admit that part of me enjoys the notoriety of being able to say I was one of Lichtenstein's "victims". Would I be more outraged if the entire piece consisted of a single panel based on my work (like Sleeping Girl) and he had made millions from it? Probably.

The issue of how Lichtenstein produced his art and the money he made by appropriating the work of other artists without credit or compensation can become complex when looked at from various points of view - or, it can be as simple as black and white. I'll leave it for others to sort out.

Sext Hot Butterfly Tattoos on Sweet Girls

Hot Butterfly Tattoos on Sweet Girls

Hot Butterfly Tattoos on Sweet Girls
The Girls will fly over the sky with sexy butterfly tattoos design. The Girls must look very beautiful with sexy hot butterfly tattoos on their shoulders and lowers back. look at the pictures, how sexy they are with butterfly tattoos on their bodies

Sext Hot Butterfly Tattoos

WINTER SOLDIER #8 Cover

This cover is a departure from my usual painted covers, in that it is primarily a traditional ink drawing that I colored in Photoshop (as opposed to using it as the basis for a painting). There are a few places where I did paint over the black and white art, but not many. I'll be doing a bit more of this on future Winter Soldier covers, and possibly elsewhere as well.

As you can see in the line art below I forgot to draw Black Widow's belt, so I added it in while coloring.

67 Years ago - Victory In Europe Day

The news flash reached Canada at 9:36 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time  “Germany has surrendered unconditionally.”

On this day in 1945, we celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine.

 crowds flood onto Rue Ste-Catherine in Montreal.

There were official celebrations across Canada, including a parade on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, crowds filled the streets of Toronto and Montreal, there were victory parades in small towns. Times Square in New York City and Piccadilly Circus in London were packed.

The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms: In Prague, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo; at Karlshorst, near Berlin; in northern Latvia; on the Channel Island of Sark--the German surrender was realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany.

The main concern of many German soldiers was to elude the grasp of Soviet forces, to keep from being taken prisoner. About 1 million Germans attempted a mass exodus to the West when the fighting in Czechoslovakia ended, but were stopped by the Russians and taken captive. The Russians took approximately 2 million prisoners in the period just before and after the German surrender.

Meanwhile, more than 13,000 British POWs were released and sent back to Great Britain.

Pockets of German-Soviet confrontation would continue into the next day. On May 9, the Soviets would lose 600 more soldiers in Silesia before the Germans finally surrendered. Consequently, V-E Day was not celebrated until the ninth in Moscow, with a radio broadcast salute from Stalin himself: "The age-long struggle of the Slav nations...has ended in victory. Your courage has defeated the Nazis. The war is over."

On May 8,  Prime Minister William Mackenzie King addressed the nation. He underlined that the “victory was won at so great a price.” After six years of conflict, in which Canada had enlisted more than one million men and women in the armed forces, 42,000 were dead. It was indeed a remarkable contribution for a country of 11 million people. Canada had won the respect of other nations and  emerged as a new power in the world, a benevolent power. As Canadians and Europeans took to the streets to celebrate, Mackenzie King pointed out that the War was not over; Japan had yet to surrender. For many, it was a summer of semi-peace.

Please take a moment today to remember those Veterans who gave their lives so that we enjoy our freedoms we have today.

Sketches from Boston Comic Con

I had a great time at the Boston Comic Con a couple of weekends back. Thanks to everyone who came by! I only have a few pics of some of the sketches I did at the show and unfortunately they were all taken with a crappy phone camera. Better than nothing I suppose!