Okay, fellow Trailheads. I reckon Cherry got Rusty off to his scout meeting without problems or worthwhile conversation. We are back to the Rarified World of Violet Cheshire, whom Cherry deigns to call “Miss Violet”, as if they are on some ante-bellum plantation with magnolia trees and happy slaves singing in the fields. And I’m thinking that Cherry’s response in panel 1 is a not too subtle reference that the self-absorbed, upper class Violet, with her southern belle image, misses. Or not. Perhaps she did get it, as Violet puts out her own burn against Cherry in panel 4.

I’m especially taken with how well Violet “cleans up.” Not only does she look younger than when she was originally portrayed, but her features are softened. For a gross comparison, here is how she looked at Planet Pancake, after Dirk’s hogs feasted on her butterfly plants. That could have been Violet’s mother.

The first panel could have been a source of scenic enjoyment, but that enjoyment is marred by an almost medieval lack of proper depth and proportion. For example, the dark green trees are least as tall as the house, but they look pretty close to the women and one could imagine the trees are only about 7 feet tall. Both can’t be true.

Artists traditionally divide space into background; middle ground; and foreground. Clearly the forested moutains are in the background, leaving the field and trees to mark the middle ground. That leaves us wondering if the house, road, and women are in the foreground, or if the house is part of the middle ground. But if you look at the road and track the spaces of the women and the house, it would seem either the house is too small or the women too large. In short, more ambiguity.

I think a lot of this spatial ambiguity could probably have been fixed by moving the two women to the right foreground and showing only their shoulders and heads.  They would constitute the new foreground. I hope you can visualize that. Of course, I’m getting into the weeds and making this more academic that it deserves. This is just a comic strip, something that will be published in newspapers with a general height of less than two inches. Such subtle refinements that I’m referring to probably will not even be noticed.

Otherwise, I’m hoping today’s strip closes out Cherry’s involvement with the Sunny Soleil Society, as I don’t see where there is anything more to develop in the story, unless Rivera just wants to explore two people getting on each other’s nerves. Your thoughts on this?