C’mon, people, get with it! Mark= Blue; Cherry = Red! I hate when they mess that up!
But Tabby is off and running!! With Andy keeping an eye on her (like he was told to do…) for sure this is going to get Andy another scolding!!
And it’s Andy the Gallant to the rescue! Under the category of “Let no good deed go unpunished…”
…Andy gets a face-full of stink-juice… Check out the hand-stand the skunk is pulling off… do they really do that?? I’m not so sure… Poor Andy… he’s having a baaaaad day… Look at the smirk on Tabby’s face! HA-HAW, This is fun!!! Looks like it’s Tomato Juice for you, Old Friend!
The Daily Trail 
The sudden change in Cherry’s hair color is inexplicable.
Here is a question for Dennis (Blog Leader) and other loyal followers which I am curious about. What makes us avid followers of Mark Trail? For me, I love the outdoors and read this strip as I grew up here in Minnesota. It was always down to earth and expounds nature. What about you folks? Why are you Trail Heads? I think we are not a real large number!
Thanks for the question! As for comics in general, I have to give my father credit… and for the memory of picking up a Sunday paper as Squash’s drug store after church, (we are talking mid- to late 1960’s) with the color, large format Funnies wrapping the outer layer of the paper. This caught my eye, and even before I could actually read, I was drawn to the artwork and colors! Dick Tracy, In particular- all those crazy gangsters! Fast forward and whenever I had a paper in front of me, I always turned immediately to the Comics. Not sports, not front page, just comics. My earliest memories of Mark Trail are from a summer at home in between college years when a particularly long running arc had Andy caught in a deer trap (a big cage, really…) without food or water for what I am sure was weeks… I was heading off to fall semester at Madison where I knew the local paper did not carry Mark Trail. A throw away comment that my mother heard, something like, “How will I now whether Andy makes it or not?!” resulted is a letter from home, complete with the dailies cut out and mounted on stationery with commentary in the margins. This went on for a while- at least long enough to see Andy saved… Skip to 2013 and we had said good -bye to my father who passed unexpectedly, and my being a fan of the Comics Curmudgeon (whose snarky take on all comics was a daily read for me) I started sharing my daily thoughts on the Trailverse with my mom (who is still with us, gratefully) through email and after that became a habit, I figured I could blog this. Never figured I be at it for as long as I have been, but given a small and devoted audience, I have kept it up. I am hoping a return to the roots will re-energize me. James Allen almost had me throwing in the towel on more than one occasion. Thanks for all your comments and encouragement, fellow Trail-heads!
Nice question, Mark!
Well, I’ve been a comics fan all of my life. I especially love the older comics (’30s,’40s,’50s), where artists had room for more creativity and greater story lines, especially in the adventure and continuity strips. “Mark Trail” is one of the few strips today that attempts to carry on that tradition, something difficult in a daily strip. “Mark Trail” did not encourage my appreciation of nature much, I must say. I already liked the outdoors; used to be in the Boy Scouts and loved camping; and I still enjoy visiting parks and camping, but in more comfy cabins (rather than surplus army pup tents).
I also used to listen to the “Mark Trail Theater” on local station KFAI decades ago. Did you? But I’ve been on and off with “Mark Trail” over the decades. Of course, it is nostalgic and often very corny, sometimes preachy, and sometimes based on crazy story lines that don’t always make sense. I’m afraid I sometimes read it just to find things that irk me, which, I admit, is a bit unfair. If you’ve read my comments, you know I do get snarky. But, I still appreciate the strip and look forward to seeing it every day (except Sunday, because it isn’t in our paper). I’d be really sad if the syndicate does not find an artist to carry on. It has certainly earned its place in the paper.
On the other hand, I’d love to see certain other strips dropped to make room for new ones, especially rerun strips such as “Peanuts”, and past-its-due-date strips such as “Beetle Bailey”. There’s lots of good talent out there and they should have a chance to grab a bit of what little glory is left in our disappearing newspapers.
That is pretty neat to hear from you folks. As far as comics go (non-newspaper) I loved going to the drug store as a kid and looking at the that comic rack. They are non existent now. I was a sucker for Sad Sack as well as Superman. I’d pick out three or four and be set for a car trip or time on the bed. With video games & the internet that is all gone for kids now. Which I think is sad. Only older guys can appreciate that. I’m 64 and amazed that I’m 64. It was like yesterday I graduated from UMD then went to be a ski bum in Aspen for a year before realizing I better get a real job. The years went by and now I have 2 young Granddaughters. I guess I like Mark Trail because it reminds me of reading it as I ate my cereal before school while listening to Manerd Speece on WCCO and the farm report! A comforting old fashioned strip. I have to say, if on vacation I’ll bring along a book of the Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes. Love those.
C&H – great, great work. Lovely and funny. Gary Larson has rejuvenated The Far Side, but online: https://www.thefarside.com