Well, well, Welly… Kelly is an Influencer, it appears.
No doubting now what era we are in… no confusing signs of yesteryear to conflict with modern accoutrements… Here we see a screen on a smartphone and a reference to “followers…” Internet famous. Anxiety over not having enough “likes.” As Mark continues to pay for past indiscretions and un-woke moments, this is looking more like Dickens’ Christmas Carol- Mark being visited by Ghosts to remind him of the life he has led and is likely to lead if he doesn’t change his ways. Boy, this is going to go over like a lead balloon!
The Daily Trail 
At least Kelly has her own real Twitter account — @fishdonteven
Well, I see on other blogs that the strip still has detractors, but for new reasons: It isn’t the same!
But isn’t the current manifestation of “Mark Trail” more or less the expected result of taking our (or my) “bitch-slapping” and snarky comments seriously? Haven’t we been taking “Mark Trail” to task for its “frozen in the past” moralities and culture; its dull dialog; hokey stories with frequent dead-end sub-plots; its trite cut-and-paste artwork; Cherry’s submissive role; Rusty’s hapless “Leave it to Beaver” act; and Mark’s smug attitude?
Well, perhaps a lot of fans are upset because most of those cherished memes we love to make fun of are now gone. Our love-hate relationship has been overturned by a new artist who took an axe to that Mark Trail forest of hokum and hacked away everything we complained about (including the exclamation points at the end of every sentence)! “Beware of what you wish for”, right!
Personally, I’ve always been more pissed off by syndicates and newspapers that continue to rerun comic strips after they have officially stopped producing new panels. Examples of these “zombie strips” are: Peanuts, Get Fuzzy, Cathy, and For Better or For Worse. Like ’em or not, we’ve seen them before. Let’s bring in some new strips! There’s a lot of talent out there. If you still get a tickle out of your daily Peanuts, go buy the f***ing reprint books! Thank God Watterson had the right idea when he retired.
George, I’m with you on this.
I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the new direction . . . yet. In part, that’s because my aging eyes are having trouble reading the wordier dialogue bubbles. In part, it’s that this graphics style has never been my cup of tea. I am undecided about whether the strip needs to focus on retaining some greater measure of realism, at least as far as the depiction of animals and plants. But I am really fascinated by the new and interesting approach and willing to give it a fair shot before I cease being a Trail fan.
I was a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes mysteries as youth. I recall the shock of watching Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman upend all my conceptions of the characters of Holmes & Watson in the BBC TV series a few years back. As startling as the reinvention was, I soon was in awe of the creativity, skill and imaginative energy infused into the modern storylines. I remain a follower to this day of both the books and the TV series.
So here’s hoping I can keep my cheaters near at hand to decipher the print and learn to appreciate the fascinating new direction of Mark Trail. Maybe I’ll even learn to read graphic novels! (And I suspect there will always be a bit of room for a bit of snark or the occasional well-deserved tweak of the artist’s nose.)
Hah! Great minds and all that. I, too, am a big Sherlock Holmes fan since my youth. For me, Jeremy Brett is the best interpreter, even if some of the tv adaptations were a bit corny. I’m hit-and-miss with Benedict. I like a lot of the concepts, but he gets a little too over-the-top for me. But I’ll keep watching.
As for the New Trail, I don’t mind the wordier panels. It’s a chance to have more substance in the storylines and characters, though it is certainly a big change from Old Trail. I hope Rivera is working on her animal-drawing skills; maybe that is why we don’t see them so often now: They are a work in progress. “Hey, Jules! Don’t be afraid….”