Remember when this blog started? I sort of held Mark up as a standard? WWMD? True North in times of confusion and strife? Well, it appears that this version of Mark Trail is bent on becoming a felon, if in fact he doesn’t already have a criminal record… Grand Theft Boat, anyone?
Well, we will dance with the one who brung us, at least for now. I agree that this is more that a mild whiplash treatment of what has come before. We used to shake our heads at the hokiness of the strip, its predictable nature, but now we sit in quiet (or not so quiet) disbelief over the manicness of is all.
The Daily Trail 
Wow! The guy who somehow jumped onto the FRONT of the boat (in spite of the fact that he was BEHIND the boat) should be given a medal for the long jump. After all, Mark has been racing away from the dock over several days of the strip. Even in “comic book time”, how could this guy jump so far?! This is like the absurdities we used to see and comment on in the former version of Mark Trail. I mean, if you go back and look at the sequence for Jan 5, you would see that Markey Trail is already 20+ yards away from the dock.
Okay, so Markey is racing along more docks and boats, so it is conceivable this jumper was somewhere along the way. Still, how do you jump from behind a boat and land in front, when it is moving away from you at speed? Maybe this was a deliberate parody of “Mark Trail” super-hero actions from the past.
By the way, I presume we all saw daddy, as drawn again in the the standard “Classic Mark Trail” style back in the January 4 strip? Well, I am inclined to think that Jules has pushed this “The King is dead. Long live the King!” angle far enough. The boat has left the dock. It’s time to move on. But, like Allen’s storylines, I’m afraid this one will power on.
Still, it seems about time to cut back to Cherry and her trailer family.
* its predictable nature
Touché! Happens to the best of us…