Points to Diana for having enough sense to bring along some basic safety equipment. While the drawing in panel 2 doesn’t suggest a very long length of rope, I’ll give Jules Rivera a bit of artistic license in this case; within reason. But I’m surprised Diana expected to find places to attach a rope. So, how fragile are those stalagmites, anyway?
I do like the cutaway view of the cave in panel 3; it’s like watching an ant farm. But it is also a convenient technique for giving a panoramic view of the group’s progress.
Did anybody catch my literary pun in the today’s title? I don’t claim to be clever, but the phrase just popped out of my head, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus (ignore that allusion; it’s just my academic-era PTSD showing up again).
It’s been a quiet week here in Lake Woebegon … uh, skip that. I got sidetracked. It’s recycle week here in Mark Trail. In her attempt to be the Complete Eco Cartoonist, Jules Rivera is recycling one of her earlier stories, rather than cutting down more virgin plotlines. Look, if Rivera can keep recycling opponents, why not stories, as well? Elrod did it, too!
We returned this past week to Lost Forest, where we found Cherry doing spade work at the Sunny Soleil Society. Violet Cheshire approached her with a request. Violet was concerned with strange shrieks coming from the music hall where she plans on holding another music festival sometime soon. They discovered that bats are in the building once again! While Cherry seemed to recall the similar event from a few years ago, it’s not clear that Violet did. In fact, that earlier event was never specifically brought up for discussion. For my own part, I was sure this lead-up was just one of Rivera’s jokes on her readers. I was wrong.
When Cherry investigated the music hall, she discovered that a bat population was housed in the upper area and now contained a bunch of bat parents and their babies. Violet wanted them removed immediately, but Cherry pointed out that the law forbids them doing so until the youngins are capable of going out on their own. This sent Violet into conniptions at the thought she might have to reschedule the concert. Well, it’s a valid concern, especially if Violet has already sent out invitations, printed posters, and uploaded notices on Fakebook and BikBok. But we may have to wait a few weeks to learn more, if Rivera holds to the normal story ratio of two weeks of Mark to one week of Cherry. Perhaps Cherry should approach King Features for her own comic strip!
Mark is going “all in” on caves! But why is Mark standing in front of water? Not all caves have underground streams. Perhaps this is a visual reminder of Cricket Bro’s current illegal cave visit that Mark is about to get sucked into. Good thing Mark has the proper gear!
Say, does Mark buy homes on the side? He reminds me of a billboard I see. (panel 2)
Bats protected during breeding season? Well, that is a fact, in fact. Too bad Violet might have to reschedule. Such a tragedy it is, too!
However, I am still in the dark as to why Jules Rivera appears to be revising a plot from a few years ago. If this is all Rivera can do, perhaps it is time for her to make Cherry branch out and get some different jobs with other Lost Forest citizens or businesses. At the least, it could lead to new plots and characters. And Cherry’s stories could use some freshening up in the character department.
Art Dept. Oh, I like the “dripping paint” on the wall behind Violet in panel 3. It nicely reflects the disaster she is experiencing.
Don’t forget that Violet Cheshire has some kind of British background (in case you are confused by “Blimey” and her last name, “Cheshire”). However, Violet seems to have forgotten how her “Just make them go away!” approach worked out the last time. But Jules Rivera has learned a bit more about bats. So now she has instituted the “baby bats” plot twist into the story, based on a comment Mark mentioned last Sunday about not moving bats during baby raising.
But it’s too bad that Violet didn’t put any effort into “Bat Prevention” for the music hall after the first occurrence.
Art Dept. The salvation of today’s strip lies in the different layouts in the four panels. In fact, each panel offers a different and interesting viewpoint that reflects the dialog. This is reminiscent of Rivera’s earliest work on the strip. The top-down view in panel 3 is especially well-designed. The foreshortening of Violet works well enough to make the composition believable. This variety is a welcome advance from the usual one-view-fits-all layout that she too often relies on.
Well, how boring! I was sure Jules Rivera was going to pull a fast one, rather than revise a prior plotline. If she’s rerouting the river back under the same bridge (so to speak), does this mean that Violet is going to once again call on Honest Ernest for assistance?
However, we learned this past Sunday from Mark that moving bats on your own could be illegal at certain times of the year. Instead, he recommends calling the local Animal Control. Not sure they would actually do the heavy lifting. They normally only respond to domestic pet crises; so they would probably refer Cherry to a private pest control service, which would likely mean bringing in Honest Ernest, after all.
Lots more riffing on the bats-in-the-music hall story, though it’s the Fall concert instead of the Winter concert. But what’s all this shrieking business? Bats sleep in the daytime. So I still think Jules Rivera is throwing out a red herring. You’ve probably already figured this out, right? No!?
It’s one of two things: It’s a group of not-very-talented people practicing inside the music hall. Or we’ve just discovered what became of the cat family left in Violet’s care (“Kittens and Kablooey”, 2024).
Anyway, Cherry is being unnecessarily catty (panel 3) when referring to Violet’s harp recital. Recall that it was Cherry who interrupted Violet in the middle of her recital at the Winter concert in order to introduce her dad playing banjo with a feral cat “singing” along. Wait … Singing cat; shrieking horror sounds. I’m getting a bad feeling here.
Finally, because I know you’ll mention it if I don’t, I realize what Rivera has drawn in the window in panel 1. But I like my theory and I think it would be terribly disappointing if Rivera is playing this straight and just borrowing the “bats” plot from her earlier story. If that were the case, I’d have expected Cherry to say something about that, as well, to lean into the joke.
I think we’re all wondering just what a “stubborn rosebush” is, yes? It certainly can’t be for lack of budding roses.
Well, today’s strip threw my neck out of joint for a minute! Is Jules Rivera reviving a Mark Trail practice during the final Jack Elrod years of retooling old stories? The bats-in-the-music-hall plot device was first used back in 2023 (“The Good, The Bat, and The Ernest”), where Cherry and Violet were thinking about holding a winter music festival in this very hall.
Or is this just a windup to another joke? Recycling older Mark Trail adventures is well-documented by Mark Carlson-Ghost on his Mark Trail Confidential website: (https://www.markcarlson-ghost.com/index.php/2020/11/21/mark-trail-confidential/). You can read the article for more information. The pertinent section is labeled “Maddening! Mark Trail’s Recycled Tales (1979-2004).” But perhaps today’s strip is a nod to Mark Carlson-Ghost’s article. Frankly, I’d be surprised if this turns out to be anything other than a humorous reference to the 2023 adventure.
Well, well, well … looks like Cherry still has her life and her job! But I can’t say a lot about her gardening expertise. That’s how it is with stories, it seems. Characters get twisted and turned to fit whatever the story needs, rather than making the story fit the character. After all, Cherry is supposed to be an expert gardener.
It’s like Commander Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation: An android supposedly possessing great strength, remarkable reflexes, and a mind the size of a planet (sorry, that’s Marvin, the depressed robot). Yet, the writers sometimes created stories where Data acted slow; was sometimes out-thought by mere humans (e.g. Kivas Fajo); or was physically bested by his “evil twin”, Lore. It’s like some kind of unwritten rule of the Fiction Universe that characters with impressive powers must have flaws and cannot appear superior to mere human beings for fear of making TV viewers feel paranoid or depressed. That’s why Superman wound up with kryptonite, I think. But that was a self-inflicted injury, as fans know; because Superman was not originally the super-flying, invulnerable character he morphed into. But I digress …
All in all, it is nice to have a change of scenery here, even if it is just for six days. But are we going to get anything of a worthy story out of this unimpressive episode? There must be something else afoot, other than the complications of transplanting rose bushes. Not that stubborn rose bushes can’t be a worthy problem in certain contexts, such as a person calling into Gardener’s Question Time on BBC 4 for advice. So we’ll have to wait a bit to see what Violet really has in mind for Cherry, after the audience laughter has subsided.
Art Dept. Today’s strip shows elements of rushed work: Boring fixed-camera views; characters and objects out of proportion to each other; schematic scenery. Some cynics <ahem!> will blame it on good weather and good surf, while others might respond with “Nothing new here.”
I sometimes make joking references to Stephen Pastis because of Jules Rivera’s love of puns. But Pastis’s puns are constructed from the text of the lead-up panels. On the other hand, the humor I see here looks more like what I find in Hi and Lois or Family Circus.
This week was a contest between personal values and professional ethics. At times, that can be a traumatic experience, and it was so for Diana Daggers in this past week’s strips.
Cricket Bro, brother Crypto Bro, and Diana were on location at the Peligroso Cave, currently closed because of the threat of flooding. Cricket Bro needed to visit the cave to fulfill his own agenda of providing thrills to his online followers in order to sell more Cricket Power Bars. Diana tried to talk Cricket Bro out of it, declaring it was too dangerous to enter right now. But he insisted on exploring, and Diana must come to video the event, else she would not get paid. The ethical debate was set.
Diana went over the numbers and realized she needed the money badly, but also believed this was a really stupid thing to do. Given who she was with, she should not have been surprised. In fact, signing up for anything Cricket Bro wanted to do is pretty stupid. I observed that Kelly Welly, who signed up to assist the two Bros in what turned out to be some kind of AI scam in New York, was not part of this group. Hence, Diana Daggers. Anyway, Diana had to weigh the possibility of personal danger against the near certainty of financial disaster. It was enough to make her put aside her own safety for the financial reward. Against her better judgement, she agreed to go into the cave with the two brothers.
There are things she might have prepared for, to mitigate the danger, such as bringing along safety equipment. Well, they do have backpacks, so it’s possible they have some of that. The week ended with them cutting down the caution tape and entering the cave. And speaking of things associated with caves …
Here we are, once again, with bats. This is not the first time Rivera has devoted a page to them. With all of the other issues in our environment, I’d think that she could find other things to discuss. Like rabies.
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“Enough raving, more caving!” Catchy phrase, that. Reader Hannibal’s Lectern made a good point yesterday that Diana Daggers has more leverage than she realizes, since she is the videographer. If Diana doesn’t go into the cave, Cricket Bro gets no video to prove his exploration. Well, unless he or his brother happen to have something like a GoPro on them.
Now GoPros are not known for quality work in lowlight situations. However, as we have seen before in prior cave episodes, caves surprisingly have plenty of residual light. And everybody has helmet lights, as well. I reckon we’ll find out tomorrow what Diana’s decision is going to be.
The cave seal has been torn asunder, so if Ranger Shaw does make the rounds he should spot the infiltration. Then again, Ranger Shaw has shown himself to not be the most dependable person in Lost Forest. So if disaster strikes, the explorers may have to rely on Mark’s “heightened forest awareness powers,” for discovery and rescue, as commenter be ware of eve hill suggested.
The lure of gag strips is almost always too much for Jules Rivera to ignore, so Rivera’s continued forays into humor wipe away any chance of actual drama or danger. Today is another good example of Rivera succumbing to her inner Peanuts. Too bad she wasn’t offered the job of taking over an abandoned, but still published humor strip, such as Get Fuzzy (in spite of the fact that it is published by a different syndicate).
But why stop there, when she could make a pitch for rebooting Peanuts.Or even Dilbert!? There are precedents: Numerous old gag strips have already gone through one or more reboots, such as Nancy, Gasoline Alley, Alley Oop, and Popeye.
And as it was foretold in the Book of Mark Trail, “She, too, shall cave…” Diana Daggers once again faces a financial crisis. But some of this is on her for continuing to associate with grifters and hustlers. So, into the cave they will go, as Diana thinks to herself how foolish she is for deciding that rent is more important than life.
Well, when they all get trapped—as this story seems to demand—I’m curious to see how anybody discovers them. I don’t think it will be Mark’s “Cave Rescue” antennae that start twitching. More likely, it will be Ranger Shaw as he makes his rounds and notices the ripped sign and footprints. Perhaps Mark will happen to be tagging along with Ranger Shaw asking if he knows anybody trapped in a cave and needing a rescue. It all fits!
Okay, the only real issue left, as far as I can tell, is whether Diana Daggers goes along with Heckle and Jeckle into the cave. What say you? Can this story even continue without her assent to descend?
Well, at least Diane Daggers has enough moxie to try to knock sense into the Bonehead Bros, for all the good it will do. The real question is what will she do next: Leave or follow? Diana knows she is near Mark and Cherry’s cabin, but maybe it all depends on how much she needs the pay.
Anyway, I’m rooting for Cricket Bro to enter the cave. And I’m also rooting for the cave to not let him leave!
I might feel differently if Cricket Bro or the other regular cast of mischief makers had anything hinting at a personality greater than a single motive. But there seems to be none to be had. Wait. I take that back. FauxProfessor Bee Sharp has displayed different attitudes and actions towards Mark over the years, both pro and con. More con than pro, I’ll grant you, but he does exhibit a bit of complexity. Cricket Bro, on the other hand, is just a superficial conman. He would not be missed. The least he could do is go back to Oregon and investigate some of their caves so we can have a different story. That’s not gonna happen, so put on your steel helmet and light, as this story is about to cave into catastrophe.
At some point between Friday and today, Cricket, Crypto, and Diana apparently found time and reason to completely change their outfits. Just why they would want to do that has yet to be revealed.
Now, if your first (or second) reaction is that this story is shaping up to be worthy of a junior high writing contest, we’re on the same page. And it’s a certainty that Cricket Bro didn’t take the time to read Mark Trail’s Sunday nature strip, or he wouldn’t be going into the cave on his own. Well, I take that back.
It will be mildly amusing to see what Crypto Bro and Diana are going to do, or why they even bothered to show up. Without video, Cricket Bro will have nothing to show anybody, unless he has a GoPro attached to his helmet or jacket … Nope. Don’t see one. Perhaps Cricket Bro is just making sport of his brother and they will all head into the cave, after all.
Mark is back in Lost Forest, where nothing was said about Happy, catfishing, or Rusty’s reign as the Raccoon King. Instead, the week started with Mark watching—and visibly reacting to—videos of cave explorers getting into trouble. Cherry was concerned that Mark might be having flashbacks to his own perilous cave adventure, and that was certainly true. However, Mark offered the excuse that watching these cave disaster videos helped keep him ready to provide rescue services in case somebody happened to get stuck in a nearby cave. Well, you can never tell! Let’s see:
There you are, taking a leisurely hike through the woods, enjoying the smells, the sounds of twittering birds, and the quiet rustle of rabbits and deer moving through the trees. It’s a beautiful morning and you could stay here all day … when your reverie is suddenly interrupted by the muffled cries of several people yelling “Help! We’re trapped in a cave and can’t get up!” “Egads!” you exclaim to yourself. “They must be trapped in that nearby cave! Good thing I watched those videos and happened to be wearing my steel lantern hat and carrying a hundred feet of rope looped over my shoulder. It’s time to get to work!”
Speaking of convenient timing, Cherry added that Ranger Shaw just happened to be putting up “CAVE CLOSED!” signs at the hitherto never-before-mentioned Peligroso Cave (located somewhere around Lost Forest), because it is Flood Season. A coincidence, you say? Jules Rivera is just getting started, folks!
While Cherry and Mark were talking about cave disasters, the strip cut to another location where Cricket Bro, brother Crypto Bro, and hired videographer Diana Daggers were hiking, decked out in their corporate yellow cave-exploring attire. To nobody’s surprise, they are at Lost Forest to explore the Peligroso Cave! Of the thousands of caves throughout the country, Cricket Bro just happened to select that cave to explore. And during the flooding season, no less. I sure hope that Cricket Bro pays Mark well for his predictable rescue job when the time comes, because Mark certainly hasn’t been bringing home the bacon for a while.
“Caves are inherently dangerous and not worth risking your life to explore. But here is how to prepare for your visit.” Now that is one clear message! However, I do like Mark’s comment, “You are not an exception.” That could be a daily mantra for all of us. As usual, the pun in the last panel falls flat.
Cherry Trail has studied her TV sitcom history well. Her closing comment yesterday provided us with the required irony for today’s switch to Peligroso Cave and the explorers who are soon to be trapped
Sorry, Diana. Poor Diana Daggers. She seems to have gotten stuck playing backup for one second-rate bozo after another, her early fire having fizzled. Like Cherry, Diana Daggers is another woman in this strip who started out with an aggressive, in-your-face personality, but soon softened up to became just a “go along to get along” supporting cast member. I have written before about Cherry’s path to docility. I’ll put Violet Cheshire here, as well. Given who writes and draws this strip, I’m flummoxed. Tess Tigress seems to have kept her personality largely intact. Go figure. I could be wrong and we’ll wind up seeing Diana take a much stronger part in this story. I hope so, anyway.
For some reason, Cricket Bro (life-long rival of Mark Trail) feels the need to inform his brother, Crypto Bro, and Diana what they are about to do (panel 1), even though they are already outfitted for spelunking and already on site. If this is Rivera’s method for revealing what the plot is about, she could have had Cricket Bro say something less embarrassingly stupid, such as “Hey, fellow web goons! Are we ready to hit Peligroso Cave today!?”
Nobody should be surprised at this surprisingplotline. It wasn’t the Grungey Boys, but I wasn’t too far off the mark. It’s a small world in the Trailverse. However, creating comic strip characters takes a lot of work and if you aren’t hauling in the big bucks, then you go with what you already have.
We used to call Mark Trail “Captain Obvious”, but I think we may have to reassign that nickname to Jules Rivera for a storyline that looks to be as predictable as any episode of Gilligan’s Island. I still hope to be surprised and corrected.
Note: The term “web goons” is apparently popular Internet slang. In this context, it refers to people obsessed with Internet projects, such as web comics and online humor. There is another popular definition for “goon” referring to individual sexual activities, often centered around online fictional images. It’s a fluid term, I reckon.
What a relief. I’m glad Cherry put a stop to Mark’s pity party, so we’ll have no cave rescue adventure to worry about, right. Right!? So where is that blasted call from Bill Ellis, anyway? I want to see Mark sent out on another assignment before he winds up feeling he has to rescue the Grungey Boys for being illiterate and stupid.
Poor whiney Mark. “What if I have to help!?” Well, why would Mark believe that? Is he a member of the Lost Forest Rescue Brigade? Does such a group even exist? Jules Rivera presents a Mark Trail who seems to believe he is the one person capable enough to perform whatever daring feats of discovery, recovery, resuscitation, or rescue are required in any given situation. It must be tough being King of the Lost Forest: “Please stop me before I help again…!”
Anyway, what’s with this Peligroso Cave? And why would a cave in Georgia (presumably) have a Spanish name? Well, it turns out that Spanish conquistadors explored this area looking for gold. Hernando de Soto was the most famous of that greedy lot. They didn’t find gold, but did introduce the peach to the state. I reckon we’re about to have una peligrosa aventura en una cueva! So get your steel caving helmet and LED headlamp ready!
Art Dept. Is Ranger Shaw gesturing hypnotically, as Mandrake the Magician would say, to seal off the entrance? If not, what is he doing? You tell me!
I’m not really sure how watching reality videos about people trapped in caves helps you get ready to save others who are trapped in caves. In reality, it requires years of training, specialized equipment, and great health coverage. But even Mark is entitled to his fantasies.
I reckon we have an honest-to-goodness insider joke in panel 2, where Mark mentions feeling like he was trapped in cave for 6 months. Turns out that the cave adventure Cherry references (which blog originator Dennis Williams called “Arachnid Ho!”) lasted approximately six months; well, actually seven months, including a month-long prolog beginning in December 2015. But Mark did not come into the storyline until January, 2016. Mark, Carina, and Gabe raced into a cave for their safety on Feb 1, 2016. The adventure ended on Jun 25, 2016. Where you want to start counting is a matter of opinion. In a way, then, Mark’s cry in panel 2 echoes sentiments of Trailheads who felt like the cave story was going on forever. Okay, I think I’ve flogged this beast enough.
Anyway, I have no idea what Jules Rivera is referring to in panel 3. What scouts!? Rescuers are not “scouts.” Is Jules Rivera talking about Rusty, now?
I don’t find humor or satisfaction in body shaming, but it sure looks like Cherry could do with a little more physical activity in her day. Maybe some jogging with her sister, Olive? In any event, today’s minor episode is just a drawn-out affair to make the point we did two days ago about Mark’s cave experience in New Mexico.
In fact, Mark was in another adventure involving a cave pursuit, also published during James Allen’s tenure. It was a story of epic length and plotlines, starting with a phony “female hostage situation” in the Rapid City, South Dakota airport (“Ferret, Black-footed Ferret”); Mark being taken prisoner by a bank robber and led on a dangerous escape through the country; a law pursuit through a cave with a grizzly bear who likes candy bars; a deadly storm; fist fights; guns; and more!
So the question I pose is: Will Mark get a call from Bill Ellis this week? Mark has had two non-paying adventures in a row. If Mark wants to be able to pay for another expensive home repair, he better turn up a couple of good-paying gigs soon! Frankly, I don’t know why Mark doesn’t actively pursue assignments like any good independent reporter would, rather than hang around waiting for the phone to ring. That’s no way to build up a national reputation!
The Daily Trail 