How the Sunny Soleil Society ever put this woman in charge of anything is a mystery. Clearly, she cannot handle stress. From her first violent reaction to Cherry’s petition about native plantings; to Violet’s melt-down at Planet Pancake after Dirk’s feral hogs destroyed the roundabout flower bed Violet installed (after first destroying Cherry’s original plants); and to her current melt-down over the bee swarm, Violet has proven to be one foundation less than a stable house. Doesn’t look like she was even stung!

And are those even killer bees? We have not heard from Cherry, and I expect she is better qualified to identify them than Miss CrankyPants. Thus, Cherry’s sensible solution of hive relocation is met with abject disapproval from the rabid Violet Cheshire. Clearly, she is not a real fan of nature, which has been somewhat obvious for some time. The textbox in panel 3 further suggests that this crisis may culminate in a parting of the ways for these two strong-willed women. After all, Cherry, you still have a business to run, correct?

But if Rivera follows her usual formula, Monday will see a return to Mark’s new assignment. We won’t be hearing from Cherry for another two weeks, at least; unless she makes a guest appearance for Mark’s departure. Might be more interesting to see Mark make his “See ya later” comments to Rusty or Doc (remember him?). That would give Rivera the chance to indulge in some more Mark Trail satire, as she can have Rusty say “Can we go fishing up the creek for bass when you get back, Dad?” And it would give Trailheads another opportunity to chuckle and snark at that old Mark Trail trope.

Of course, I’m not sure this 21^st century version of Rusty has fished since he was young enough to fill in for Opie Taylor. He’d more likely call out “Hey Dad, you were supposed to get me that %@*#$? autograph of Professor Bee Sharp the last time you left, REMEMBER %@*#?$!! This time I want a picture of you and Diana Daggers. Don’t come home without it!”

I suppose we had to have one comic strip day where everybody got to chuckle at Violet’s reaction, because now, Cherry decides caution is the proper road to salvation from the bee attack. I don’t think that Violet would lock the door of the Sunny Soleil Society’s building before Cherry could get in, would she? In her panic-driven state, anything is possible, especially when you think killer bees are going to destroy you. But it looks like neither of them thought to hide under the tarp they pulled off of the statue and wait for the bees to settle down. Well, panic is not a proper mental state for logical thinking. So, why did Cherry not think about it, given that she seems to have a more grounded handle on the situation?

And did we really need a day’s worth of panels just to show that Cherry decided it was also a good idea to get away from a bunch of angry bees? I spoke of story padding and did not think we had seen any. Until now.

Uh-oh, images of the old Romper Room children’s TV show just invaded my potted plant of a brain. That’s what I get for staying up late. I’m not sure why, but it must be the bees, because one segment of that show consisted of a segment called: Mr. Do Bee, a person dress up in a “giant bee costume” who instructed children on what they should and should not do. Instruction was given in pairs of simple imperative statements, such as:

Do bee a story pusher!
Don’t bee a story padder!
Do be do be do.

Okay, the third line kind of slipped out.

Panic is an unfortunate, imprecise, and desperate reaction we humans experience in the very places and times where it is least useful. It is the “survival instinct” run amok, as it were. And it is easy to chuckle and nod our heads at Violet’s predicament, as we view this flight of panic as if it was a comic strip version of The Birds. Of course, Violet Cheshire is imperious, shallow, self-absorbed, and a poser. But she’s not above getting her hands dirty, as we saw in her first meeting with Cherry.

With all that, there are more deserving villains in the Trailverse than Violet, so I suspect that she is simply overreacting (as is her nature) and we’ll find that these are not the infamous killer bees, but simply a horde of honey bees who didn’t much care to be disturbed. And we can understand the bees’ reaction to Violet and their aim to move her as far away from their home as they can. Nevertheless, we should not pass up an opportunity to laugh at any misfortune of pretentious snobs. We can’t see Cherry in these panels (as the proper focus today is on Violet and the bees), but I’m sure she is enjoying the situation. I suspect that in tomorrow’s strip Cherry will put an end to this farce by telling Violet that they are just common honey bees.

From a visual point of view, I think Rivera has done a pretty good job drawing the bees these past two days, though I think she could have blurred the wings of the close-up bees, like the way we see hummingbirds, for example. Drawing those smidgy bees takes a lot of time, even though Rivera is working digitally and can (and did) copy some of her bee images. But there’s enough variety to make the copying less obvious.

And I dig those horizontal bands in the middle column, though I think it is more for the sense of tension the colors provide. Yet that is a weakness for the obvious reason that the comic strip is black & white in newspapers. Furthermore, if these bands (or lines) were meant to suggest a sense of urgency or panic, wouldn’t diagonal lines be a more obvious way to go about it? As far as the newspaper version goes, the lines are fairly faint, but consistently drawn, suggesting more a general swarming and flight. What do you think?

Finally, in the prior incarnation of Mark Trail, Trailheads sometimes criticized occasional padding of storylines with pointless dialog and dragging out scenes far too long. Can we make the same claim here? I think the situation is more complicated:  The bee incident ties into last Sunday’s killer bees strip and makes an obvious visual/written reference to Mark’s villains (Profess Bee Sharp and Diana Daggers) in his own storyline. Cherry’s adventure has not so much ended, as taken a different turn. In a good piece of classical music there are usually variations in tempo, intensity, and theme. So I’ll make the musical analogy that this week’s strips are like a divertimento, a lighter piece of music that could be played as an interlude between more serious works. We’ll see how that analogy plays out.

Okay, I’m sure everybody is wondering:  What the #@(!? Is that thing on top of the statue? To me, it looks like a set of Samsonite luggage that somebody opened, or maybe a collection of seat cushions. Who is this person, then? It appears to be somebody dressed in typical 18^th century frontier clothing, holding a telescope in his left hand and something not quite defined in his right. Perhaps a folded map or AAA TripTik? Well, it must be my imagination running away with me, because the statue in panel 3 reminds me more of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. Even that unidentified object in its right hand looks more like a small ax.

I searched online for natural bee hives and found a variety of really oddly-shaped structures, in a variety of locations, some of them similar to the one on the statue. Unlike the hysterical Violet (who is, after all, following Mark’s advice about avoiding bee attacks), Cherry seems unfazed by the swarm. I’m also thinking that these must not be the dreaded killer bees of Sunday’s fame. There goes another one of my outlandish theories.

Still, Cherry is right to question the hive on top of the statue. It certainly seems like a most unlikely location. I suppose it makes for some good press, er, storytelling, though it would have been more interesting to see the bee hive growing under the frontiersman’s crotch.

Two mysteries remain: Who is the subject of the statue? Who, if anybody, affected to have a bee hive placed on top of said statue? A beekeeping web site notes that bees are partial to some kind of odd color combo of yellow and ultraviolet. And they are partial to fast-moving objects! So, looks like Cherry’s decision to hold fast while Violet runs off with her yellow hat was a good idea.

Wait a minute…Violet + yellow hat! Is this a coincidence or is Rivera a lot more subtle than people give her credit for? The BIG OBJECTION to this otherwise absurd notion on my part is that we are not sure if Rivera is responsible for the colors used in the dailies. Does anybody know for sure? I have read that KFS has staff doing the colorization of the dailies, but not necessarily under the direction of the strip artists. I am trying to find out, but it does make any kind of analysis (or goofy theory-making) based on color something of a shaky foundation. I’ve often wondered about this colorizing, since it is not normally done for daily publications, as we all know. Like Ted Turner’s colorization of old movies, it seems to be more of a marketing tactic.