Scratchin Gears is a comic strip based on the experiences of a long haul truck driver about the life on the road and at home along with other unexpected places. Whiskers is the main character of this comic strip in which all of the chaos falls around this sometimes unfortunate cat which usually happens to wind up on top. There are many characters in his world that are nuts to say the least. He’s a family man and has a few close friends that unknowingly cause most of the "Cat-Tastrophies" in his daily life. Not quite sure there are many of his nine lives left though. There’s a co-driver Catfish which he runs up and down the highways and byways of this land to keep America moving. The truck stop mechanic that keeps his persnickety confrontational truck in tip top shape occasionally in an unorthodox manner. If he can’t fix it he’ll blow it to bits and they call him the Brain. Between the life on the roadways, truck stops, home and the local police and highway patrol, this comic strip will bring you a little closer to the behind the scenes of the American trucking industry and keep you laughing so hard you’ll be liable to miss your exit!

So Whiskers and I hope you will enjoy the constant antics combined with a little mirth and mayhem mile after mile.

See ya on the flip side N keep the Shiny Side UP!        

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The comic strip Scratchin Gears was first created in 2001 by R.L. Bowman and is based on some of the experiences of being an over the road truck driver.

I started drawing at an early age... In about the 3rd grade I believe it was. I do remember getting in trouble a lot for drawing in class instead of doing my school work. Drawing trucks was my first passion about the same time I saw the movie "Smokie and the Bandit." I was hooked! At that point I always wanted to drive the big rigs. Then I fell in love with a cynical overweight cat, Jim Davis’s Master creation Garfield. I’m probably one of his biggest fans and Garfield has always been a hero of mine. So there you have a lover of 18 wheelers and a smart mouthed cat!

I had tried other comic strips about cats before with no success. One was "Pudgey & Patches," a cat n dog duo competing for the same attention from their owner like 2 spoiled kids. The other was "Trash Bin Kitty." An alley cat with a bad attitude, but I didn’t have anything that I thought the public would enjoy until I started driving an 18 wheeler myself.

One day while delivering a load to the Windy City of Chicago, it came to me in the most painful but peculiar way.

Let me explain. First I rode around the countryside with a 20+ pound house cat that I rescued named "Bella." She was a bit cynical and persnickety in her own right. I was at the back of the trailer opening the doors so I could back up to the dock but as I opened the doors, the wind kicked up and I slid around on the ice without turning loose of the door and smashed my fingers when it came to an abrupt stop! As cold as it was, I kept the profanity to a minimum and climbed back in the truck to find my cat laying comfortably across the defroster vents warm and cozy. The look that I received was priceless as if to say, "that was amusing, do any more tricks?"

If you don’t think a cat can have a serious human expression on their face, just do something stupid in front of them and look back and you will see. Cats pay attention to detail, and at that moment of pain and the look on her face, "Scratchin Gears" was officially born. That was in the fall of 2001 and I’ve been drawing the comic strip while constantly improving it as much as possible to try to convey the humor that’s hidden in the trucking world to every day people like yourself.