The cabin is starting to look a lot more rustic than we have come to expect, even from the prior version of the strip. And when did the front door get a 4-pane window? I looked through a random sampling of prior years (thank you, Dennis!), but most of the time, the front door was always in the shadow of the front porch. Just seems odd. Another thought occurred to me that this home is looking more like a camper cabin you rent in a state park!

Some of the panels in today’s submission are quite good (especially panel 1 with its complimentary angles and contrasting lighting), but panel 3 is an awkward bird, with Cherry framed in the middle of the panel by an entranceway. Eech! It’s the kind of framing mistake photographers and portrait painters try to avoid, for obvious reasons.

However, this certainly cannot be the front door, because we all know there is a large porch on the front of the house, on which family members sometimes hang out! So, we might hazard a guess that Cherry went out a side or back door. Maybe King Features Syndicate forget to give the floor plans to Jules Rivera when she took over drawing the strip!

Now, why does Cherry have to sneak out, and only after Rusty is put to bed? Isn’t Granddad Davis still living there!? I mean, the last we saw of ol’ Doc Davis he was escorting Cherry to the Sunny Soleil Society HQ. Reckon Cherry must have decided he was too useless and stored him in the Mark Trail Unnecessary Characters Box until the current adventures end, whereupon he will be taken out for a brief appearance when everybody is home again. Just a guess! Maybe she hired the squirrel to keep a close watch.

While Cherry’s statement in panel 3 is meant to establish an expected upcoming contradictory event, panel 4 displays a textbox that clearly should have been hung in panel 3. And Cherry, do you think putting the pedal to the metal is really the best way to sneak away? I reckon the squirrel is as nonplused as I am. But I think we can now agree that “the point” Dirk referred to is not Lost Forest.