Oregon artist Maximilian Uriarte signed up with the U.S. Marine Corps at the age of nineteen and served as a gunner in the Iraq War. His early comic strip Terminal Lance offered a sardonic view of military life in an occupied land, but his new graphic novel The White Donkey takes a darker turn, echoing the old combat adage "War is long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror."
The White Donkey has been hailed for its frank depictions of post-traumatic stress disorder in young veterans, and Uriarte hopes to adapt the graphic novel into a feature film. In the meantime, he has returned to the middle east as a combat artist and combat photographer, and pursued a career in animation.
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- KBOO