reported by Sandy Williams, FictionFanatic.com

Garry Trudeau, creator of the long-running daily comic strip Doonesbury, has announced the launch of a new military weblog on his website, Doonesbury.com. The Sandbox, a "milblog" featuring entries emailed in by service members stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, will be officially introduced in the color Doonesbury comic strip that appears this weekend in newspapers nationwide.

"This is GWOT-lit's forward position, offering those in-country a chance to share their experiences and reflections with the rest of us," says the site's introductory text, adding "The Sandbox's focus is not on policy and partisanship, but on the unclassified details of deployment -- the everyday, the extraordinary, the wonderful, the messed-up, the absurd."

Trudeau hopes that the interactive environment will help keep the troops, and the sacrifices they are making far from American shores, on the minds of Americans at home.

"There is some truly memorable found journalism in existing milblogs", says Trudeau, "but its exposure is generally limited. We mean to provide a wider window into the daily lives of frontline troops by making The Sandbox available for rapid-response blogging from anyone serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. We hope these posts -- occasionally amusing, sometimes provocative, always fascinating -- will put readers on the ground with our troops and help them to better understand what they are enduring during deployment."

The Doonesbury.com website is hosted by uclick, a leader in Web and mobile content. In addition to the Sandbox, visitors to Doonesbury.com can also read the daily Doonesbury comic strip, post commentary on it in the Blowback section, play arcade games like Castmaster, and explore such features as the Daily Briefing, Straw Poll and character bios. Doonesbury daily comic strips can also be found at uclick?s flagship consumer site, GoComics.com.