Forgive the gap, Campers, these weeks get away from your (sometimes) faithful scribe… Let’s start with the Sunday educational moment (And yes, the Opossums earlier were a tip-off…)
Prehensile Tail, huh? “Capable of Grasping.” Have to admit I have heard the word but wasn’t sure what it meant…
So, while I wasn’t “playing Opossum” with this blog, I do find it easier to take in chunks… so here we go!
Mr. Trail, tear down that wall! Well, I guess all’s well now, despite the toxic algae build up?
Oh, Rusty, there you are, in all your glory! Teenager making with the mischief on the Social Media… And Rusty must be home-schooled, since I am sure that Lord of the Flies has been put on the ‘do not read’ list…
Interesting! When we were first introduced to Marcus Happy Trail III, we saw the lineage… and as far as we knew, he descended from biology, not adoption. Looks more like cloning, but what the heck. But the fact that the young Marcus looks more like the original Rusty than the latter day rusty looks like the original Rusty, this just has me confused… help!
I thought the “SNAP” was already on Rusty’s hoodie! But no, he just broke the head off from the mount. Happy not so happy about the Boat! Final frame, cue laugh track… and scene
The Daily Trail 
Welcome back, Dennis, though I’m not sure where we are. Even Rod Serling would probably have a headache trying to keep things straight at this point. Rivera must be having a good time with her wrecking ball, knocking the stuffing out of the old strip. I’ve pretty much abandoned my notion that this was just some long dream sequence Mark was having, while prepping for his trip to Florida.
Instead, it looks more like Jules has simply put the pedal to the medal (as they used to say) and is driving hell-bent for leather, not caring how many old Trailheads fall off along the way (e.g. regular responder, Mark). The more the merrier! Certainly, any new readers will have no idea what the hell this is all about, over and above the “story line”. At some point in the near future, these “insider” flashbacks and tropes will certainly disappear and the strip will move on, in whatever direction Jules deems desirable.
So, we are watching an extreme makeover from “Mark Trail, conservative, gentlemanly Conservationist” to “Mark Trail, radicalized woke Environmentalist,” in spite of the fact that the Trail clan is still totally WASPish. Even Rivera’s introductory panel—the one you have on the home page banner here—depicts them as some carefree Gen-X family on an “adventure holiday” in Cartoon Land (though I’m not sure if she did that as a parody).
But like others, I think she is doing a good job on the Sunday panels. Light-hearted and informative, with some gentle humor.