Yup, I have… and so has everyone else, except for Doc, apparently…

But poor Cherry…“That’s great, Rusty! What did you say? All I know is that I am so sick of making the coffee, pouring the coffee, making the coffee, pouring the coffee…”

Lather, Rinse, Repeat…

That’s a fine pan of hot-cross-buns you made there, Cherry.  Mark gazes expectantly upon them, barely able to contain his salivary response… I guess life doesn’t get better than that!!

And talk about shape shifting…  that close up of Doc makes him seem almost, well, human.  Not the lock-jawed marionette we usually see.

PS… it was pointed out to me that the centerpiece on the table is actually a pizza box!  Witness the uneaten slice of pizza on Mark’s Plate!  And they are drinking coffee with pizza!  What the Hell??

We established in the Wes and Shelley Epic that there is no cell coverage at Lake Rhododendron, in the shadow of Slumber Mountain… Unless you stopped by the “Nearby Ranger Station” while you were out “checking for otter traps…”  I swear, I am not sure that I can believe a word that comes out of his mouth…

And what of the fish you caught for your shore lunch?  Moldering in the sun by now?  I guess that was a fleeting notion…  l can only hope that this little Rusty interlude is now over, the fishing trip of a lifetime, capped by a bad dream about getting eaten by a T-Rex, so Mark can resume his life of promoting conservation and fighting bad guys (and gals) that would have it the other way!

Uh, perhaps not.  The writers of this strip clearly don’t know who we are rooting for…  It’s sort of like “I root for the Packers and anyone playing the Vikings…”  T-Rex, we hardly knew ye…”

Notice how Mark’s shirt sleeve is rolled up past the elbow…  That’s not the way it was a week (or is it just a few hours?) ago… He must’ve found SOMETHING!  OH this strip sure knows how to tease a guy…

And please, no more close-ups, OK?

That’s AWESOME!!! Rusty chooses the “flight” option and snags his right (or is it his left?) foot on a tree root and DOWN HE GOES!  Total Face plant!!  Couldn’t even get his hands out in front of himself to cushion the fall.  Not that it matters much considering his proximity to the charging T-Rex.

And what is it with his right side?  His hand and foot are noticeably smaller in proportion to what they should be, considering even that they are a little closer in than the left side.  Poor Lad.  I guess we have seen this before.  Must have a disability, which means I really shouldn’t be making fun of him anymore…

<insert thoughtful moment here>  

naaaa…. let’s keep up with the fun…

And we are back! Our favorite neglected ward Rusty Trail (Adoption Papers, please…) has once again been abandoned, only to be left with his own thoughts and dreams as companions…

What a lonely twisted place his mind must be!  Is he the Protoceratops?  His drunken abusive biological father the T-Rex??

The “prehistoric struggle for survival” as shown here is a fanciful notion…  I am sure that there were easier quarry than this ceratops and his full armor display!  One would have to be pretty drunk with rage and anger to go after such a prize and risk a goring!

I was waiting for Rusty to insert himself!  Oh such issues the boy has to work through!!  Now, Rusty, did you learn anything from that flat screen TV we saw you plopped in front of earlier in the Otter Epic?  That T-Rex has lousy eye-sight, and that unless you move about, he really won’t “see” you?  At least that’s the prevailing theory… Care to test it out?  You can stand there, stock-still and be snatched up like a little morsel, or run away and be picked off properly…

Diplodocus…  the largest of all dinosaurs…  once thought to be a tail-dragger…  not even thought to be warm blooded… but now we know better, thanks to Steven Spielberg and Jack Horner…

Oh Good heavens…  where to go with all this.  Assuming they write this strip with some thought as to where IT is going, I need inspiration, I need a bad guy (or girl) fixed on raping the land or spoiling the great outdoors…  Hell, I would even settle for Kelly Welly to pop up and try to horn in on the action…

What can I say, Rusty?  You don’t give a guy much to work with…

So little going on here.  So little to say… Have to admit I did not see this one coming, nor, having seen it, am I enthusiastic about the way this story line is “progressing.”  Is Elrod going for a new audience here?  A need to expand the Rusty character beyond the two dimensions of which we are all too familiar- fishing and wasting film (oops, printer ink and photo grade paper since we have since acknowledged the existence of digital photography and memory cards…)

But wait, maybe I misunderstand the Pterodactyl’s role in current popular culture…  there’s a rap song written and badly animated… warning, this contains some salty language…

Which goes immediately to the question, “just because you can, does it mean you necessarily should?!?

Rhododendron Lake… that’s what Wes and Shelley and Mark and Cherry managed to turn into a scorched earth… right?  That took a plane to get to, right? That required the “local ranger” to make “travel arrangements” in order for everyone to get home…  and this has been the scene all along of where otters were being trapped and poached?  And Mark and rusty can canoe there without breaking a sweat?  Someone draw me a map, OK?

Oh but perhaps the most compelling aspect of this would-be story arc is NOT the fact that Rusty gets to go fishing, but that Mark lands FIRMLY on the side of Darwin… the Godless heathen!!

And as Mark’s elbow, sort of Señor Wences style, answers for Rusty, “OK, Mark!” Rusty lies in repose wondering whether life can get any better, now that he is complete… but we better hope that Mark doesn’t stray far as the “one line per fisherman” restriction is clearly being violated in panel three…

…but when do we start gutting and frying up the fish?  I am hungry!  Actually, I am just being kind.  Interest and fascination with dinosaurs sort of hit the peak a couple of decades ago… hey, Elrod- the 90’s are calling and they want their plot line back! Ha!!  It’s twenty-freakin’-thirteen, and I think we DO know what killed off the dinosaurs and made way for mammals…  no doubt the next plot “twist” will be the realization that they are linked to present day birds, were warm blooded and may have sported feathers!!

Love that phrase, “ruled the earth.”  By what means?  Biomass? Weapons of Mass Destruction? Without going all green, it takes a certain amount of hubris to make that claim.  Of course we all know the man and dinosaurs walked the earth together… I mean it says so on the internet… Can you believe there’s actually an organization called the “Institute for Creation Research?”  I may be bored to tears by this story line so far, but I am learning so many things!

…should tell you, Mark, that this isn’t going well…  But clearly you suffer from Social Emotional Agnosia, and therefore can’t begin to read the expression on Rusty’s face (Or Cherry’s for that matter…) and adjust your approach accordingly.  So yeah, Doc beat you to it, Slick.  While you were out doing whatever it is you do, Doc took Rusty to look at some old bones… it was last Sunday, I think…

“And here’s another thing I learned, Mark, that what we know now as the United States and Canada was actually a number of smaller continents divided by shallow seas… and that we are likely standing on what is referred to as Appalachia…”  So what else you got, Nature Boy?  I mean, Really.  Step it up!

Really?  Well, I guess you have been somewhat neglected over the years, but this can’t be news to you…

With Mark pulling out all the stops in an attempt to connect with his step-son, resorting to that which he knows best, assumes the “naturalist crouch” in pointing out a bit of flora… “And so, to prove my hypothesis, ipso facto, (or not,) let me point out something that hasn’t changed an iota in the last 200 million years- witness, the FERN PLANT!”

I know that writing dialogue isn’t easy, but to write dialogue this bad takes a certain amount of skill…

The Sunday Nature Feature (we will call it the “Neature”) prattled on about new discoveries in the world of dinosaur bones, specifically in Protoceratops family…  are we going to do a little time travel in the Trailverse?  Make a stand for evolution, not creation?

Note Mr. Pileated Woodpecker in the foreground of panel one.  Apparently the plumage in the drawing is not overstated…

Is it me, or is this already getting boring?