Protect the Troops (1994)

1994. The cartoon mocks a health campaign in the Israeli army. We want our boys (and girls) to have the best protection, the most modern armor, the safest procedures... And sometimes we on the homefront (in Israel, America, and wherever) discover that they don't have the equipment that they should have.

Sometimes reworking an old joke can help in writing a comic strip script. I built this cartoon on an old joke about the battle-weary Russian army unit whose Captain reads them orders from headquarters. "The troops will all receive a long-needed change of underwear," he reads.
Hurray! Shout the troops.
"Okay," says the Captain, "Igor, you change with Vladimir, Ivan, you change with..."

For the cartoon to be funny, I felt that I had to leave the last panel for the reader to contemplate the soldiers' reactions to what they've just heard.