As we recall, this past week was the continuation of “Mark’s Trail of Woah!”, as we bounced back to his impromptu fight, in progress, with Killer Bee Sharp, after cutting away for a week to watch Cherry cozy up to another one of her oddball siblings.

So, we watched this supposed “pretend fight” start and stop and start and stop again, allowing Killer Bee to get in more actual punches than our “Champion for Nature” was allowed to do. Still, when he did connect, he left messages.

While Mark was more concerned with how to make this travesty of a meeting last for about 30 minutes, the Herp Hacienda kids bungled their attempt to sneak Aparna’s laptop out of Cricket Bro’s hands. Oh, it’s been a herky-jerky week for Mark and Company, both in story and in drawing. If this was the first week of viewing Mark Trail for a reader, I would understand that person complaining of headaches and confusion. Even many of us veteran observers are likely scratching our noggins trying to understand current events. As before, I think these story segments demand two straight weeks at a time in order to help improve overall continuity. And let’s get Dirty Dyer back!

Even though the Butterfly Bush has been mentioned, along with its problems several times in the past few weeks, it has still found its way into a Sunday nature talk. Once again we see a nice cooperative Sunday chat featuring both Mark and Cherry. Still, I wonder why it couldn’t be just Cherry this time, as it falls in her bailiwick. Perhaps there is some long-standing rule Mark Trail has in his contract where he has to be in every Sunday strip.

Well, at least Rivera gives us a set of recommended butterfly plants that help the butterflies. Good show! I will go on to add that the common milkweed (Asclepias) is another good choice, especially beneficial to Monarch butterflies.

Otherwise, this is a nicely drawn page. Perhaps Rivera draws several Sunday strips at one time, after several weeks of dailies are drawn. This would help keep the drawing consistent from one Sunday to the next, especially as the Sunday strips are generally drawn cleanly, evenly, and sympathetically; whereas the style in her dailies is more confrontational and sometimes jagged, perhaps to support the current drama. Anyway, some good continuity with Mark showing garden shears in the middle panel and again with the same shears in the final panel!