…the fact that only the most stalwart will continue to run with this strip.

When a single day takes over a month to play out, (than you andysowner) it suddenly becomes all to apparent why one gets the feeling, the hope even, that quicksand would deliver a sweet release…

One also assumes that the eruption is being felt throughout the island chain and it’s not unlikely that Cherry by now has put down the umbrella drink, thrown on her cover-up, and sobered up enough to ask whether the US Geological Survey might deploy its considerable heft (no doubt they have their own standing army by now) and rescue her husband (and what other life forms without a comic strip named for them) from the disintegrating island… This would be consistent with other “crescendos” where the Federal Government is the only possible point of resolve for these long walks we are being asked to endure.  I guess the self-reliant, vigilante Mark Trail died with Mr. Elrod, too…

Seriously?  it has been reduced to conflating onomatopoeia?

And for those of you keeping track, we started rumbling for real on October 31st…  although the foreshadowing began weeks before that in the chopper ride to the island.  I try to avoid personal attack in my comments, but this is just plain laziness on the part of our scribe and author, who was entrusted with this franchise but now continues to bore and disappoint.  Happy Monday, all!!

I mean, they are standing there staring down a wall of moving molten mantle matter with presumably no place to escape other than over the cliff from whence Mark just rescued Abbey…

Note the tree all aflame in the panel near Mark’s head… I’m sure that’s an interesting phenomenon watching the lava issue forth and items in its path reaching a level of spontaneous combustion… like a tree that had, only seconds before that, been alive and vital and full of life force… Mark and Abbey better take a cue from that before they both spontaneously combust…

…lightning fast reflexes, and superhuman strength that allows a single hand to arrest a human body’s worth of falling momentum…

We apparently missed a small sound yesterday that would have allowed us all to sleep a little better last night!

So with that (almost) over with, (let’s all assume that she doesn’t pull Mark over the cliff with her,) we can continue to follow the “flip book” action that will no doubt carry us into the New Year…

Only in the Trailverse could someone go head-first over a cliff, only to suddenly be descending feet-first…  and declaring to Mark and the world what is happening.  The only thing missing here is Abbey referring to herself in the third person…  “Abbey Powell trips, slips and is falling over what appears to be a cliff.  This is nothing new for Abbey Powell… Abbey Powell has survived worse falls…”

So… will Mark Join her, like the last time?  Will the fall distance allow Abbey to reach terminal velocity and have her break both legs?  Stay tuned boys and girls, for we never know what will happen next!