Last time I checked this was a family strip…  I dare not even comment on today’s rendering of Carina, as Mark looks away in disgust and horror… and reluctantly answers her comment.  Have you no shame, girl?

Hard to tell in the background what Gabe is doing or what direction he is heading… sort of hunched over in simian form, is he leading? Is he bringing up the rear?

A crashing sound you say?  almost like surf?  Maybe they have walked all the way to the Gulf of California and the Baja Peninsula…

“My face is melting!!” shouted Carina as Mark lays on two of his best, most tried and true clip-art looks… Mark “has faith…” Ladies and Gentlemen…  Well Hallelujah, Brothers and Sisters, Mark has done found his-self some sal-vation…

Well, they had better get themselves out of that cave system…  we need to find out what’s going on with Jose and Jefe… remember them?  the coyotes?  Making a killing trafficking humans north to Trump-land?  OK, I know that’s a potentially unsettling thought…   but these three need to re-join the World of the Sun in order to find out what is going on !

I am at a loss.  I can’t remember the last time that Gabe was featured in three consecutive panels, (and I’m not going to look…) but it’s really off-putting.

So what comes to mind?  A random scene from the classic Planes Trains and Automobiles, when the super up-tight prissy Steve Martin character dresses down the lovable, oafish but affable John Candy character, “When telling a story it always helps if there is a point to it…” Are you listening, James Allen??

It’s hard enough being a girl in the modern world- societal expectations regarding body size and shape… But unless her jeans are full of water, her backside just grew immensely in proportion to the rest of her…  Not to mention reading Mark all wrong these last hours/days/weeks- yes, he’s a happily married many that wants nothing to do with you…

So as Mark keeps his distance from Carina’s marauding tongue, he mentions Gabe… and no sooner does he do that, when Gabe comes schussing down the face of the unexpected and unnamed falls…  Nice that he’s been able to maintain his scream all the way down… what better way to announce your arrival??

…fallin’ down the falls…

I’m not sure whether Gabe is supposed to be the comic foil, a clumsy oaf, or the inveterate cock-blocker…  But there he goes, as if he’s at the main attraction at WaterWorld- where adults take their children to mingle with other children in the roiling, chlorine-infused frappe, doing their best to ignore each other while avoiding eye contact with other people who, like themselves, apparently had nothing better to do…

So with Gabe tumbling over the edge and Mark parrying Carina’s advances, we are left to wonder, once more, where all this goes.  At lease we continue to have good light…