Ah, what a week, fellow readers and deniers. The Boxing Circus that began the previous week continued this past week, with the match once again changing format, this time into a free-for-all (“rumble”), as Tad Crass pressed his aim to humiliate the man trying to undermine his land-grab scheme; the same man he illogically invited to participate in this Woodsman Olympics and provide an opportunity for the land-grab plan to be exposed: That man is Mark Trail.  All in all, this doesn’t seem like a well-thought out scheme, like showing up at a Taylor Swift concert and expecting to buy a ticket at the door.

Anyway, acting referee and moderator, Tad Crass, seems to be making this up as he goes along. His erratic changes are intended to demonstrate an increasing pressure to humiliate Mark in public. Instead, Mark and Cliff (remember him…?) changed their own strategy. They made their way around the rink to where Crass was standing. Then, in an amazing display of “in plain sight maneuvering,” Mark plucked Crass’ microphone off a lectern and began to incite the boxers to stop their fighting. Tad and Mark jostled each other for the microphone, as Mark revealed Tad’s aim to steal secret plans for egg salad . . . oops, sorry, wrong plot. Mark revealed how this Olympic event was just part of a plan to help Tad grab some the land originally intended for the solar farm project.

We don’t know what the reaction of the fighters or the public was, as Tad persuaded Mark to step into his office for a quiet talk. What will take place therein? Not sure, but it most likely will entail some attempt to buy Mark off.

Moving on to the nature subject du jour, at least we see Mark wearing a more tasteful hat. The idea that badgers and coyotes sometimes hunt together was interesting news. However, in spite of the “19 mph” legend in panel 5, that badger does not look like it is doing anything more than taking a walk. I expected to see just a bit more effort on its part! Badgers also exist around the world. In England, the badger is famously known as a character in the delightful book, “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame. You can paste that last bit of info over the insipid dialog in the last panel.

Well, the free-for-all rumble is all but forgotten, as are the Grungey Boys. Instead, Mark and Tad hold an impromptu argument/negotiation in public; if you want to call a desert “public.” Well, there is something of a stadium with some viewers in it, I reckon. I half expected all of the other contestants to get frustrated by this chaos and simply pack up and go. It would make a great single-panel strip!

And we have arrived at the transition we’ve been waiting for:  An invitation to Tad’s office where he will try to buy off Mark in some way. This is what we saw, implied in the unfinished panel that Jules Rivera posted elsewhere, and that I reposted on April 1^st.  As for the boxing match, with Tad Crass stepping away, who is going to run the contest and judge the winner?

Art Dept. The accidentally colored-over tail of Mark’s dialog balloon underscores the haste that is clearly visible in the drawing of panel 1. Yet the other two panels are comparatively more carefully delineated, suggesting that Rivera was in a hurry, but returned later, when she had more time. Or maybe it’s the other way around, and the hasty panel was inked in last.

<Lots of self-indulgent musings today!> The drawings of Mark in the first two panels are pretty well conceived and executed, especially the bottom-up view of Mark in panel 2. Jules Rivera used to feature varying perspectives more often, but she still brings it out when needed. And this views suggests a sense of the dramatic that the image of Tad fails to provide in panel 4. That seems to be a deliberate choice: Tad Crass’ image lacks that dignity. It’s just an angry guy. I can’t go any farther on this; it may just be projection on my part.

Take panel 3: a seemingly incompetent drawing. How can we reconcile these conflicting drawings? We’ve seen time and time again that Rivera is less successful in drawing figures in the “middle ground”, that space between the close-up and the more distant view. So, I have to assume this is a deliberate choice on the part of Rivera. Could Rivera have drawn Mark and Tad more competently, less childishly? Yes! But could this childish drawing in panel 3 be meant to symbolize their childish behavior? Well, if my earlier interpretation of Mark’s and Tad’s faces have any merit at all, then I can’t totally dismiss this idea about panel 3. But I have nothing secure to go on.

Okay, that’s about it. I wonder how Rivera will wrap up this scene on Saturday. Will the fighters stand by Mark or by Tad? Will they just wonder what the heck is going and wander off, looking for the next competition? Or maybe they will descend enforce on Mark and Tad and give them both a sound drubbing for wasting their time and ruining the contest.

“’GENTLEMEN’!? Why, these are bloody woodsmen, Mark!”

These panels might make more sense after Happy Hour.  Why does Mark want to stop the match? I presume it is so he can reveal Tad Crass’ real estate fight. Which would accomplish what? Are the fighters going to quit and throw away their chance to win a lot of money?! I don’t think so!

I wonder where that large curtain and lectern came from, because it was not part of the setup that we saw when the contest area was first depicted in panel 4 on March 31 (Go ahead and scroll back to look. I’ll wait for you..).

And I know you’re gonna have questions about how to interpret the rink in panel 1 and panel 3, as well as what the heck Mark and Cliff are doing. For some reason, it didn’t occur to them to simply hop out of the rink and walk around it. Poor Tad Crass; he looks like he lost his marbles (panel 2) and doesn’t know what to do. That must have been what made it possible for Mark and Cliff to walk right in front of him without being recognized. I’m not sure I have the skill or patience to interpret the details in panel 3, so I’ll leave that to you all. But even the turkey vulture looks frustrated.

I’d sure like this story to have a sense of real drama and maybe some danger (I reckon the car chase might have offered something if it hadn’t abruptly ended just after it began!). However, we just have this, instead.

Today we see Tad’s free-for-all rumble in action, apparently comprised of little kids and Hobbits, based on Tad’s large size. Well, perhaps Tad’s been taking growth hormones?

Now, I don’t quite get the conversation going on here. “A distraction to keep Mark quiet.” Huh? Are Mark and Cliff somehow under the impression that they must remain in this rink? I think not! But they don’t seem to know any better. Clearly, Mark must not care about winning the contest, so why worry about this sham fight?  All Mark has to do is step out of the rink and walk (or run) over to wherever the microphone Mark refers to is located (Note that the “image” in panel 4 shows a lectern with a mounted microphone; something we have not seen). Mark could also walk around to the other side of the rink, pull Tad’s feet out from under him (as happened to Cliff), and grab his microphone!

And just what is Mark going to broadcast to the people watching this competition? “Hey, everybody! Tad Crass is engaged in a land battle with a solar farm business for rights to a particular piece of land!” Nevertheless, the obvious comeback here (one I previously mentioned) is: There is plenty of open land in the area, enough for both sides! This may just be a comic strip, but it would have helped the story to at least include a reason why the two sides are fighting over the same parcel of desert. Did I miss something?

Art Dept. A small observation: Mark and Cliff’s hats were originally colored blue (or a variant tint). Since last week they appear as white with purple shading. Perhaps backup head gear?

First, it’s tag-team; then it’s extreme boxing; and now it’s rumble time. It just seems like the point of this match keeps changing minute by minute! Mark is worried about being overwhelmed; but I think it will be more by the continuous changes rather than the number of contestants.

Speaking of which, I was wondering who all those background (purple) people were, just wandering around the contest area. It seems they are the other contestants. So why does Mark thinks they are all just coming after him and Cliff? The point—if there is one—of a rumble is that everybody fights everybody. I think. Anyway, nobody seems in much of a hurry to start fighting. They’re probably all thinking to themselves “What kind of lunatic is this guy, running the Woodsman Olympics?!”

But, go ahead; I can’t stop you. I know that the pressure to say something has been building in you. You see the increasing insanity going on here: How unrealistic it is, defying the very laws of logic, physics, and content of the Treaty of Versailles. I speak, of course, of the boxing rink drawing in panel 3. So just go post your snarky analyses! At least it will save me the effort of thinking up something to write.

Some tag-team boxing event. Just when it gets started, Jules Rivera switches it up. This could have at least been a good opportunity to get in some sharp parody. Instead, it’s a short tease and suddenly everything will change.

Alas, brothers and sisters. There are times when I must agree with the position of reader Mark, the Contrarian Commenter concerning the current handling of this strip, and this is one of those times. It’s one thing to promote a completely different stylized look to this legacy strip, as Rivera has done; but quite another to just lazily draw outlandish anatomy, mismatched proportions, and sloppy lines. Say, is that really Honest Ernest, Plastic Man, or Paul Bunyan fighting Mark in panel 2? As for panel 3, I don’t see Ernest at all. It must be a cartoon stunt double! Have we come to a point where comic strip characters now have stand-ins? Sheesh!

But maybe Jules Rivera got encouraged by enforcers from her syndicate to push this story along a bit faster.  Otherwise, what gives with Tad Crass’s sudden panic to change the contest rules?

Art Dept. There is one exception to the otherwise forgettable art today, and that is Mark’s pose in panel 3. It has a more self-assured pose and appearance that stands out from the rest of the strip. Even Mark’s face looks different, more like the pre-Rivera Mark Trail. I can almost believe that Rivera happened to see an earlier strip and borrowed the pose for today’s installment. I’m probably wrong, but if I’m right, I’d love to find the source. However, I don’t happen to have a Mark Trail comic strip library to draw on. Of course, it would be great if KFS published all of the old strips in book form, like we’ve seen for many other vintage strips. However, that is probably not practical or economic at this time.

Mark and Cliff seem to be in a different competition area from where Cherry and Rusty are waiting in vain. I reckon that chopping wood wasn’t Mark’s favorite activity as Cherry claimed. One would think that after being married for however many years they care to claim, that Cherry would have a better understanding of Mark’s likes. Clearly, he prefers boxing … with his cowboy hat, no less!

If you think panel 1 looks like fan art from a 12-year old and that Mark looks like a real goofball in panel 2, I’d agree. It’s the “why” that is intriguing. In the Trailverse, we have a non-traditional woodsman olympics, held in a location with buildings of conflicting scales, where Mark has no idea which events he signed up for or when they are scheduled to take place. 

As far as why this boxing event exists in a woodsman olympics, it should be apparent that Rivera put Mark into this situation where she can trade off of (or make fun of) Mark and his “fists o’ justice.” It’s a simple way to inject more “action” into the plot, even if it is unrelated to the story; much like various action scenes in movies discussed in Saturday’s voluminous comments.

Regarding this contest, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mark matched up against Grungey Boy Honest Ernest. But you know what would be really interesting: To see Mark matched up against Cliff!

Mark certainly has put himself (and Cliff) in a precarious situation, vis-à-vis the competition. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tad Crass had Mark and Cliff ejected from the competition, though it still raises the question of why he accepted Mark’s application in the first place. Based on last week’s action, Tad certainly has not forgotten who Mark is.

Mark’s pursuit of Tad’s apparent skullduggery will also not likely mollify Cherry and Rusty, who could have found better things to do than hang around a wood chopping competition on their own. But that is not likely to happen, of course. Like Mighty Mouse, Mark will arrive to save the day! Or not.

If this was a live-action story, we’d be hearing a dramatic low-frequency rhythm gradually building up in intensity and volume as the contest continues and suspense builds. At the last moment the sound of a high performance car would fill the air along with some heroic music like Raiders of the Lost Ark, as Mark’s car suddenly appears from behind a sand dune, fishtailing and coming to a climatic stop alongside the competition area. Cherry and Rusty stand up and cheer as a grim Tad Crass and contest judges approach Mark and Cliff. The dramatic music returns.

Art Dept. I’ve discussed Jules Rivera’s convention of having characters appearing to look over their shoulders as they watch action going on behind them (panel 1). I presume it is either done because Rivera doesn’t want people to forget who the characters are; or she doesn’t much care to draw people from behind. Well, I don’t think there is any danger in readers not recognizing Cherry or Rusty from just about any angle. I just think it is a cheap copout.

I have the feeling that Jules Rivera used Hot Wheels models as her sources. They just look like it to me, even the van (which looks out of scale in panel 3). But that’s fine. A reference is a reference. Speaking of which, the allusion to the Roadrunner & Coyote cartoons is also obvious, along with the expected crash; though in good Roadrunner form, the van should have hit a mountain side. Like the Roadrunner, I suppose that Mark’s car can just make 90º turns at speed without swerving or running off the road. Of course, most car chases we see in movies are a time-honored way to stretch out the story.

There are few films where a car chase is an integral, effective story element:  Vanishing Point is a classic example. The Italian Job is another. I reckon we have to include the Fast & Furious franchise, as well. But for the most part, car chases are gratuitous adrenaline fixes that action movies are just expected to include.

But I don’t understand how Cliff’s cap stays on his head when it is stuck out in the open like we see in panel 2. It would have to be so screwed down on his head that his hair would be sticking out sideways. I was also puzzled by Mark’s quip in panel 3. I looked back and didn’t see any advice Mark gave out on safe driving. Gosh, maybe he was just fibbing!? Anyway, I was hoping this chase would last a few more strips. It barely even deserves to be called a car chase.

At least we’re getting some action here, though only the visceral kind. The plot, itself, is still very vague, in spite of the security guard claiming Mark and Cliff know too much. Too much of what, I wonder!? All we really know is that Tad Crass wants the same piece of land that a solar company wants, ostensibly for real estate development. It’s pretty thin soup, but action movies have been made with no more of a plot than this one. Anyway, let’s at least give the security guys credit for having greater recovery skills than fighting skills.

Mark hasn’t been involved in a car chase for quite some time (Do you remember the last time?!). The boys are in such a hurry to get away that they’ve failed to put on their safety belts, which might otherwise come in handy in a car chase. Still, that must be one supercharged van to keep up with Mark’s rented muscle car!

Of course this was bound to happen. Rather than develop a more complex plotline where Mark and Cliff are properly manhandled by these members of the Brute Squad and have to be brought back to the event in an unmarked van, Rivera decided on the simpler solution of “Mark Wins Again!”

Reader Hannibal’s Lectern wrote a comment yesterday in which he hypothesized that Jules Rivera depicted these security guards as bigger than Mark to symbolize their importance—or perhaps power—in the Woodsman Olympics hierarchy of characters (Go read the rest of his comment if you want the details). However, their physical (and symbolic) dominance didn’t help them. As we’ve seen in martial arts films, the tall and dominant fighters always wind up with their faces planted in the ground by the designated, shorter Good Guy.

Mark appears quite pleased with himself in panel 1, standing between the two security guys, as if he took them both down. Cliff seems to remark on that in panel 4, no doubt because he put in as much effort as Mark, but without the boasting. Are these two now going to race back to the Woodsman Olympics to try and get in a few events without getting expelled? Mark may well ignore his chances of winning the Big Money Grand Prize in exchange for stopping whatever is going on with Tad Crass. But what about poor Cliff?

This really isn’t Cliff’s fight. His kick is not fighting corruption; he wants that big payday. Yet he seems constrained to be Mark’s Faithful Sidekick, come what may. It’s disappointing that Rivera didn’t even bother to have Mark attempt to keep Cliff uninvolved so he could continue to compete and not jeopardize his chances or his liberty. Cliff should have been given a choice!  Just who is the bad guy here, anyway?!

Yeah, I know. I expect too much. It’s just a comic strip.

I like how the sizes (or mass?) of the characters keep changing. And it’s very interesting that two martial artists are undone by a fisherman and a nature journalist. I reckon that makes perfect sense for somebody who possibly got their idea of fighting from watching The Three Stooges? Or maybe from fight scenes dawn by adolescent students, as I can attest. I don’t know how else to explain this. We don’t even have a clear notion of whether Tad Crass has done anything illegal or even unethical to warrant all of this, though it’s just a matter of time before Mark is again proven right.

Anyway, sending “enforcers” to track Mark and Cliff and force them to return to the Woodsman Olympics is outlandish. Still, within the absurdity of the story, maybe it’s not completely nuts. Heck, I think we all know that Jules Rivera’s version of the Trailverse is like a Bizarro-World of goofy characters and inane storylines that many Trailheads really dislike. Rivera’s Mark Trail is a refutation of Ed Dodd’s folksy world of environmental morality plays in the same way that the TV show Married With Children was a thumb put squarely in the eye of Father Knows Best.

Yes, Jules Rivera has moved into the “just plain silly” phase of the story. As it turns out, there is such a thing as the “Cobra Clutch”, but it appears to be a “pro wrestling” or Brazilian jiu-jitsu hold; and neither of those match what is happening here. Rivera must have recently watched one of the cheesier martial arts films where the fighters are always shouting out their special fighting techniques (“I’ll defeat you with my ‘Spitting Crane’ attack!” “Clever, but I’ll defend with my ‘Drunken Tiger Vomit’ kick!”)

None of this makes any sense to the story, unless it turns out that it is all a nutty dream that Mark has been having, after getting Cliff’s original phone call. But I doubt it. Wait … Is this scene borrowed from The Octagon film? Help me out; I just can’t remember.

So where is Security Guy Number Two? Maybe Rivera has him in the role of the martial arts Sifu, the master fighter who can only be faced after all of his students have been defeated (and the good guy is worn out). I reckon we’ll see about that tomorrow! But I’m suddenly inspired to go watch “The 36th Chamber of Shaolin”, starring Gordon Liu.