Mark and Cliff are just giggly little boys, laughing at their funny hats and how “unique” they are. Swell.

So, I’ll give myself partial credit for guessing we’d see one of Mark’s regular foes. But the Grungey Boys!? The Three Stooges of Lost Forest?! This is making me even more suspicious about this contest if these clowns can get in it. The Grungey Boys must be taking steroids, because how did they get to be so tall and dominating, compared with Mark and Cliff? Mark is supposed to be at least as tall as Honest Ernest. Mark and Cliff look like the kids that get beat up in high school movies. What gives here? This disparity deflates my defense of Mark in a response yesterday to a comment by reader Daniel Pellissier about Mark’s “manliness” creds. I can’t catch a break!

Did you notice that Connor has adopted some of the facial features and bravado of his presumed mentor, Honest Ernest (panel 1)? It is also interesting that we still have no clear idea who that third member of this gang is. Else, I forgot! On the other hand, at least we can give this grungy trio points for adopting a flashy visual identity. All Mark and Cliff have are those goofy hats.

Art Dept. In general, I’m disappointed by the ongoing simplification and flattening of figures and objects. Panels 1 and 3, especially, lack vitality in their boring linework. However, I’ll give points to Rivera for panel 2, with those strong colors and simple, but bold, shapes. Aside from the lack of detail, the panel 2 exudes a 1960’s Pop Art aesthetic. That red background really pops!

Mark seems to have an OCD-like fascination for outlandish hats, especially of the “Stetson” variety. He no sooner arrives in some “west of the Mississippi” state, then he pulls some kind of Urban Cowboy headgear from out of thin air, like a magician auditioning for a job a Caesar’s Palace. Well, there is one thing we can all agree upon about Mark: Gravitas is not his strength.

Jules Rivera kept today’s strip simple and focused, so Mark could deliver his cornball wit and sartorial excesses without the interruption of his other traveling companions, Rusty and Cliff. I wonder if Rivera will devote one of this week’s strips to a panoramic view of The Strip, or focus on the downtown hotel/casinos. I expect this week will be devoted to getting these Forest Olympians situated in their hotel so they can conduct any preliminary sightseeing and gambling before the Big Event begins.

Well, I’m thankful that Cherry has cleared up the timeline. So it appears that Rusty’s humiliation is a small diversion in the Woodsman Olympics adventure. Let’s see if he learned his lesson and doesn’t post his photos online this time.

“Don’t fret, Rusty! You’ll see some actual wildlife in Vegas you can photograph, even though you live in a freaking forest already filled with it. In fact, wildlife shows up almost every day in this strip (as we see in panel 3), if only you would look out the window and notice!

“Oops. Too late, Rusty! You drove right passed that squirrel who was already posing for his close up.”

No doubt, we’ll see the family checking into one of the casino resorts come Monday. Which one will it be? It certainly won’t be the classic Sands Hotel and Casino, famous for hosting Frank Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack, along with countless other bigtime bigshots back in the days when men wore suits and women wore dresses, gowns, and furs. And everybody smoked like chimneys. The Sands was demolished in 1996.

One assignment I give myself each day is to not simply open up the Mark Trail Snark Shop and rely on its inventory of popular insults, sarcasm, and memes for my content.  But some days are easier than others, especially when Jules Rivera does it, herself.  Case in point: It’s one thing for Cherry to magically pull out her “Vegas Baby!” shades (as reader Daniel Pellisier quipped) for her novelty joke on Friday (while indirectly paying homage to Harpo Marx’s pockets); but should Jules Rivera have carried the joke through today? Perhaps this is an in-strip snark by Rivera fixating on Cherry’s own fixation on visiting Las Vegas.

A Visitor Count Anecdote: I don’t talk much about this site’s visitor counts, because they haven’t been that much of a priority, and they are almost always abysmal. However, yesterday’s visitor count was at least five times my normal visitor count! What gives!? I have no idea, unless the title of yesterday’s blog showed up in Google searches for “Mediterranean-style end tables”, and people were curious. I might try something like that again some time to see if that hypothesis has merit.

A free, all-expenses-paid trip for the family to Las Vegas?! Now I know this has to be a scam. Even in the official Summer and Winter Olympics, contestants have to pay for their own transportation there and back.

I wonder how the organization behind this event intends to earn back their investment. Will this be a streaming pay-per-view event? Are they going to bus in thousands of paying attendees? Who would come? Where would they stay? Remember, this place is 4 ½ hours north of Las Vegas! There is probably a $2,500 enrollment fee.

I still think Mark and Cherry need to do some critical thinking between them and start asking better questions. Maybe even do some online research. I tell you, this event has “stink” all over it. And maybe that is the way this is supposed to be:  A fraudulent event run for some criminal purpose, just waiting on Mark to figure out. Okay, if Rivera can repeat herself, so can I!

Las Vega is surrounded by large forests? Depends on what you claim is a forest, perhaps, and how expansive your concept of “surrounded” is. But I checked on this one. If Cliff and Mark think they can spend their days at the Woodsman Olympics and their nights in a casino on the Strip, they’re in for a big disappointment. The Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest is 259 miles—about 4 ½ hours—northwest of Las Vegas. I would add that Cherry will have to enjoy her casino vacation on her own; but if she is going to play the slots, then it probably won’t matter. “Slots” players seem to have no idea what time or day it is when they sit down. Spouses, friends, and staff just show up at various times of the day to remind them of meal times and bedtime.

I reckon that the good folks of Lost Forest have rather modest ideas about what constitutes a jackpot, according to Jules Rivera, anyway. $5,000 is real money, of course, but not exactly “jackpot money.” Especially after you subtract the costs of travel, food, lodging, and contestant registration; to say nothing of Cherry’s “casino time.” If anybody wins a jackpot, it will likely be her!

Regular commenter, Downpuppy made a great suggestion yesterday, that the floating “Go on” quote really had to do with Cherry making a comment to Cliff, as in ‘Tell us more!” Makes sense to me.

Mark and Cherry sure seem excited in panel 1! Just how many times is Cliff going to repeat the news about going to Las Vegas for a Woodsman Olympics? This is the third time in 4 strips.

And where is the money for this trip coming from? I seem to recall they didn’t even have enough money in the bank to put in a water heater a few months back. This trip is not a sanctioned, paying job from Bill Ellis, either. I bet there is even a signup fee. And to top it off, Cherry wants to blow a wad of money at the slots. No wonder they had no savings for home improvements!  Poor Rusty will be left behind, having to eat wild hickory nuts for his meals.

Well, you can make up your own mind about how Jules Rivera drew Cliff in that inset in panel 1, but it certainly looks to me like Cliff’s been taking hormone treatments.

What also struck me right away is, how did Cliff get Mark’s “invitation” to this Woodsman Olympics? Why wouldn’t Mark get the invitation? And how did Cliff even get an invitation in the first place, since he has no “woodsman” experience, other than fishing. Or is that the hard work Cliff alluded to in Monday’s strip? This sounds like some kind of scam to me, which Mark will undoubtedly discover and try to destroy. Anyway, why did Jules Rivera feel the need to drag this phone call out as long as excruciatingly possible, repeating a lot of the same information along the way? I mean, she has control over her own stories and their duration (I think!), so why slow-walk this teaser? Let’s get the story moving!

What’s the expression: “There’s a lot to unpack here.” Hoo-boy. Well, Panel 1 shows and tells us that the best part of the nature walk is yet to come. Jules Rivea continues to screw around with time, like Kurt Vonnegut’s Chrono-Synclastic-Infundibulum, where past-present-future all comingle into one amorphous reality. Well, perhaps it isn’t quite that radical. Nevertheless, the seemingly recursive nature of this storyline continues to dig deeper and deeper with each retelling.

And in what more appropriate place would you expect a Woodsman Olympics to be held than Las Vegas, with its luxurious, deep forests and lush green meadows. Okay, sure:  Nearby mountains contain some healthy forests.

And can we ignore panel 4? I say “No. Hell, No!” There is that anonymous floating dialog balloon, with the vague text, not specifically connected to either Cherry or Mark. It should be Cherry, of course. Is this just a production mistake or an editorial oversight? But consider the message box:  “Cherry can’t resist the lure of a casino!” That might be one reason she always stays home. But it also implies she is inviting herself to go along, even though the dialog balloon says “Go on…”, as in “So, go on that trip, Mark!” Because, shouldn’t the dialog balloon say “Let’s go!” or “Can I come along?”

Art Dept. Panel 1 is unusual today, as it has a different look and feel to it. For example, the background looks like some strange other-word landscape, though it is probably Rivera just drawing kudzu, which does make sense. And there are those weird lines under Mark’s eyes. I’ve seen them lots of time over the past five years. I’m not sure what Rivera means by them, unless they are some kind of applied emoticon I’m not familiar with.

Finally, the depictions of Mark and Cherry look similar in that panel to how Rivera used to draw them. I’m thinking back to 2022, as in the Oregon Trails story. What do you think?

Cliff sounds like one of those Internet commercials that crop up on virtually every web site you visit. However, if I have been interpreting things correctly, then I’m in agreement with Jules Rivera that it would be hard to find a more exciting event than a nature walk. Certainly more exciting than hearing about Cliff working hard on himself. Sounds kind of gross, actually.

Today’s strip begins with an incomplete reprise or recap of Saturday’s strip. But then does something different: Panel 2 revises panel 2 from Saturday by including Cliff’s cryptic self-affirmation statement. Then Rivera throws in a time-wasting panel 3 in which she needlessly teases us what Cliff’s exciting news might be, even though Cliff already announced it on Saturday. I thought Rivera was already aware of what the term “cliff hanger” means. Today’s strip should have been published on Saturday, ending with the cliff-hanger question that would be answered if the original Saturday strip was published today. That is how it should have been done.

But what we have, instead, is jumbled up and confusing. It is like watching your parents wrap your Christmas presents on the dinner table in front of you on Christmas Eve.

Art Dept. Two things: I have no idea what kind of phone case Mark is using, but it looks like it was designed for a masochist. It exaggerates the corners in a way that doesn’t even match the phone in Saturday’s strip. I can’t think of a reason a case like that should even exist.

Second, I like the the layout in panel 3, a compositional scheme Rivera has used many time. It’s an effective way to emphasize the landscape while still including the characters, but smaller and in the background. Reminds me of Chinese landscape painting in that one regard. However, unlike the competently designed and executed layout in panel 1, the flora and fauna in panel 3 lack authenticity. That bush in front is close enough to show us more detail instead of a bland, flat “bush” shape. The bird, even more! It looks lifeless, lacking adequate detail, but looking more like a decorative object you’d find in a gift shop.

It’s not Bill Ellis, but good ol’ Cliff <no last name>, former firefighter, Afghan war veteran, and avid fisherman! We first met Cliff back on October 2, 2021 (the “Zeeba Mussels” story).  To refresh your memory, you can read that strip and several days following, laying out Cliff’s backstory. Other than his first name, there seems to be no connection to Mark’s really old friend, Cliff McQueen, from the Ed Dodd days.

Well, this phone call is an interesting turn of events. Every so often, Mark gets involved in something that is not related to a Bill Ellis assignment. I believe the last time these two friends partnered up was when Mark launched his failed survival course for men (see “For Men Only” from 2024). So, going to the Woodsman Olympics sounds like a great time for Mark, but will he be a viewer or one of the contestants? And what kind of complications will rise up for Mark to resolve? There are always complications. And with all of the macho woodsmen destined to be there, it sounds like a time and place where Mark’s Two Fists o’ Justice might actually come in handy.