Soldier, Sailor, Artist

Chip Beck is an editorial cartoonist, combat artist, photographer, and freelance writer. War, politics, victories, and human tragedies are not abstractions for this artist and writer.

As of 1999, Chip is the freelance "Intelligence and Espionage Correspondent" for APB News, a new internet online news service covering police, crime, law and order, espionage and justice stories. He received the Society of Professional Journalism's Sigma Delta Chi Award for his participation in Online Reporting in 1999. Simultaneously, he produces a cartoon feature for APB News.com called "KILJOY-Behind the Badge," focusing on police humor.

On a part-time basis, he is a correspondent and a contributing editor for a variety of military and technological publications, primarily writing feature and thought pieces, ranging from politics and humor to quantum physics and philosophy.

From 1997-1998, Chip was chief editorial cartoonist, caricaturist, and a writer for the satire newspaper The Real Washington. His work still reaches additional audiences via his own visual and news company, Political Graphics & News Service.

In 1996, he was appointed to the Board of Directors for the National Cartoonists Society (NCS), then elected to two subsequent two year term. He is a member of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) and the official photographer for both NCS and AAEC during their annual conventions and official functions. He works with the International Museum of Cartoon Art (Boca Raton) and Ohio State University to preserve the history of the cartoonists and their societies.

He began his Navy service as a Frogman, and retired as a Commander in Naval Intelligence. In his military and intelligence careers, he saw service or was involved in wars and conflict zones in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Angola, Western Sahara, Sudan, Algeria, Chad, Ethiopia, Beirut, El Salvador, Honduras/Nicaragua, Colombia, Afghanistan, Grenada, Operation Just Cause in Panama, and Operation Desert Storm. As a Reserve Intelligence Officer, he was Commanding Officer of a Navy Criminal Investigative Service unit and a Defense Intelligence Agency unit.

From 1979-1996, he created and drew SUPERCRAT, the Super Bureaucrat for State Magazine. Another cartoon feature, KILJOY, has appeared in newspapers and Navy publications for the past five years, and is now a special feature for APB News.com.

From 1988-1991, he was daily editorial cartoonist for the Northern Virginia Sun. During that time, he was recalled to active duty for the Gulf War, as the Navy's official Combat Artist. He was also editorial cartoonist for the Sun Gazette and the Georgetown Courier.

Beck has 130 paintings in government collections of the Navy, State Department, Defense Department, National Defense University, the Kuwaiti Embassy, NCIS, the Newseum and U.S. Postal Service. His cartoons and paintings have been displayed in solo and joint exhibitions in Washington, around the country, and abroad.

As an artist, he has appeared on Good Morning America, Eye Witness News, Good Morning with Harry Smith, News Channel Eight, Antenne 2, and been the subject of a documentary clip by French TV.

He teaches seminars on editorial cartooning and the ethics of journalism for the Journalism Educators Association, Congressional Youth Leadership Forum, and the Department of Defense Dependent Schools in Korea and Germany.

Beck is currently researching material for a book called The Eagle and the Mongoose: The Secret Wars Between the U.S. and Cuba. He recently spoke on his career as a Combat Artist at a War Correspondents Convention in Havana, Cuba in November 1998, in which he was the only north American journalist to attend. As a result, he discovered several leads to stories he is pursuing. From 5-13 February 1999, he led a delegation of America's top Editorial Cartoonists to Cuba where they engaged in a ground-breaking program of encounters with the Cuban people, cartoonists, officials, and journalists.

Beck has a Master's Degree in Near Eastern Studies from George Washington University and speaks French, Spanish, and Portuguese. He can order beer and hurl insults in Russian, Arabic, and Swahili.

He is listed with the speaker's bureaus of Accuracy In Media, AFIO, Miles Stiebel Entertainment, and the Jedburgh Group. For more information, contact Political Graphics & News Service, PO Box 5573, Arlington, VA or (703) 241-0804. E-mail BeckChip@AOL.com.