And one by one, we get to see who made the jump!
With the day’s shooting scuttled over an uncooperative snake, Mark and Cherry amble back to their little cabin in “The” Lost Forest. Like there’s another? I don’t think so… I see a greenhouse and Azaleas all abloom…
Mark, you got an email? Really?? The average person, with average on-line habits, probably receives 50 emails a day! Or maybe the excitement is over Bill Ellis reaching out. Let’s see what happens to him- Suit? Horn-rimmed glasses? Crazy slicked-back hair? Manhattan tower office? It is probably all up for grabs…
The Daily Trail 
He got an email because the atmospheric conditions were juuuust right to get one measly bar.
Cheap Shots:
This is not some kind of “fat shaming” comment, but what happened to Cherry in the panel 2:
Did Cherry contract some strange allergy on the way home that caused the top of her body to start dramatically shrinking, or maybe the bottom to blow up (compare with panel one)?
Or is this supposed to some kind of foreshortened “falling over backwards” at Mark’s discovery of a message?
On the other hand, the foreshortening of Mark’s head in the panel 2 is quite good, in fact; better than what we usually have seen in this strip. But finally, there is the Zombie-head (or “Mister Potato Head”) of Mark in panel 3. It appears to be assembled from a variety of facial parts, none originally belonging to the same head. Weird.
I’m going to give this a couple of weeks. I don’t want to be a curmudgeon. This is a whole new ball game. My problem I need to get over is this….. Mark Trail of old was the only hold I could look at to a much simpler time. Like looking at old magazines, Reading older books by Gene Hill and older classic authors of the outdoors. Campfires as a kid with a canoe on the shore. I just don’t know how to express it. There is so much crap on media geared to folks in their 20’s. This was one strip that seemed old fashioned and somehow comforting. Mark Trail was a anchor of past sensibilities. It was the only comic strip that was unique for being retro! That really was the beauty of it. For all that read this blog there is a reason we were Trailheads. I guess that’s my early thoughts campers.
Right. And as far as retro goes, there is still “Blondie”, which is, for the most part, stuck in the sitcom ’50s and ’60s era. Not much for the outdoors, of course, unless you count mowing the yard! And there are several other strips tottering along in own old age, but without much reason for their continued existence. I’m sure you can make your own list!
However, nothing else comes to mind that fills in the unique nature-outdoors-adventure strip slot that Ed Dodd created. And that’s saying something!
Dennis,
Looks like they are still reprinting old Mark Trail Sunday strips, minus the panel featuring Mark, of course. https://www.comicskingdom.com/mark-trail/2020-10-18