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Monthly Archives: January 2022

Eeny, Meeny, Marimo

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Making the Marimo Connection is not my best jedi trick, even if the notion of buying a “decorative aquarium” as a self-gift is a bit of a stretch. But the aquarium does provide yet another way for Rivera to connect Mark’s and Cherry’s storylines. Must have been pillow talk when Mark informed Cherry about the marimos and his zebra mussels project. Now, since marimo balls are very popular aquarium decorations, I hope that Cherry is not going to imagine some nefarious plot involving Violet and the Duck Duck Goose shipping company.

Cherry should at least do her due diligence and inform Violet of the potential harm that can come from them and point her to online sites that tell how to safely dispose of them. Or she can get her cloak-and-trowel gang and conduct another midnight raid.

Cherry falls for Violet’s act once again

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Cherry is such an optimist! She thinks good deeds and a cheery disposition will win over narcissistic bullies like Violet. But Violet continues to prove her wrong. If you want to keep your job, it seems you might sometimes have to subordinate yourself, even suborn yourself, especially working for a roach like Violet Cheshire. Of course, Cherry could simply quit and look for a contract elsewhere. But then, there is the danger of getting a bad reference. The money must be good enough for Cherry to stick it out.

But a “decorative aquarium”? Isn’t that something they used to sell in tacky mall gift shops? It just seems kind of a bourgeois item. But in a timely association with Sunday’s commentary, I wonder if this aquarium’s decorations include marimo balls infested with zebra mussels?

The Weekly Recap and Sunday Nature Chat

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If you missed the strips this past week because you were too busy trying to solve the Asimov Quiz in the newspaper, consider your time well spent. Perhaps. We are undecided whether this was a silly side-trip, a repeated bit of satire, or a hint of further problems down the road. In any event, this past week portrayed a telephone conversation in which Cricket Bro, while on some kind of “dawn surf patrol”, woke Mark up (at some ambiguous part of the morning) to motivate him into joining up to promote and sell NFTs. Mark went into auto-lecture mode explaining his climate change reasons for refusing to buy into the scam, which, unsurprisingly, went over Cricket Bro’s head. CB finally hung up. Now, wasn’t that something? Okay, then here is a follow-up: Sunday’s nature chat.

And not a moment too soon! For those who might have come to this story a bit late, Rivera expands on her original Sunday zebra mussels chat from August 8, where they were described as hidden travelers on imported “marimo” balls, a popular fish tank accessory that apparently get periodically dumped into toilets and flushed into rivers, enabling their spread. A fair point, by the way. Rivera expanded on this topic over time to highlight the main distribution method of zebra mussels: ships. As others have pointed out, these invasive mollusks also existed in the ballast that ocean-going ships pumped into the Great Lakes (for some reason, Rivera fails to mention ballast in her discussions). And it is also true that private boat owners are also partly responsible for helping to spread zebra mussels by not cleaning their boats between trips. However, since the current story focuses on zebra mussels, why devote another Sunday strip to this topic? I mean, Mark’s point about personal responsibility could easily be worked into the daily strips. I’m guessing this Sunday panel was done several months ago and only now published.

NFT=Not For Trail?

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Okay, so Rivera reveals this is going nowhere and spares us poor readers any more of this silly sidebar. I hope. However, I don’t think either Mark or we are going to get off so easily. Based on past experience, Cricket Bro might cook up some revenge.

[CAUTION: THEORIZING AHEAD! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.]

On a different topic, I wonder why Rivera gave up her original style for Mark Trail, as seen in her early strips, such as this one from October 2020:

Rivera is often criticized for her art, as it either does not conform to the traditional Mark Trail style, or just “looks bad.” But her style is clearly a choice, not a limitation. As you may be able to see, the overall look of the October strip is certainly more fluid, refined, even more naturalistic. The coloring is less saturated (again, not discernable in b&w strips). The overall look has a lighter touch, with a definite feel for volume.

So, why the style shift? It might have been a matter of time and effort. The October panels would have to have taken much longer to produce than today’s. Or it could be that this earlier style didn’t lend itself to the kinds of stories and personalities Rivera decided to continue with. But Rivera continues to use interesting and unusual compositions (October panel 2) not normally seen in Mark Trail strips of yore, though not in today’s panels.

So now what?

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Perhaps Cricket Bro is such a narcissistic bully that he has never admitted to himself that Mark helped defeat him. Perhaps he thinks Mark is naive enough to be fooled into this scam, whereby he gets his revenge.

And Mark feels the need to respond to any idea with a prepared lecture. All he had to do was point Cricket Bro to some the earlier strips that already went over this stuff!

Are you wondering what the point is here?

Are you wondering where this is leading?

Are you wondering who will hang up first?

Are you even wondering what’s going on back at Duck Duck Goose shipping? Well, Rivera is weaving a tapestry of story threads, so we’ll have to see how it all comes together.

C’mon, Mark. At least the suckers will be rich suckers!

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I have to admit that I like the effect of Rob leaning over the jagged line representing the telephone connection between him and Mark. Not a new invention, but it is effective. I also like the fact that there is enough text in the strip to make you slow down to read it, rather than doing the typical quick scan of many strips.

Less effective is this load of BS that Cricket Bro is handing to Mark. I suppose Rob must be a sociopath, which might explain his behavior and actions. At least Mark seems resistant to this big deal. But again, why is he even listening? Because he has to in order to build up the premise for further action down the road, I think.

Why are they talking to each other?

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Lots of narration lately. Wait. If it is the crack of dawn for Mark, it has to be about 3 AM for Rob. But if it is dawn for Rob (the dawn patrol, yes?) it has to be at least 8 AM for Mark. That should be a bit late for a woodsman like Mark to still be sleeping.

Anyway, while Rob talks on his humanoid telephone, Mark obligingly continues to listen. Why?

Rob appears to believe if hardcase Diana Daggers could get suckered into the NFT scam, so can Mark. Scamming seems to be Cricket Bro’s go-to technique.

Where have we heard this before?

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Mark must have one heck of a hangover to look as bad as he does. Well, one thing I think is pretty interesting: and that is that Rivera does not seem to be content with limiting herself to a strictly linear storytelling technique. Instead, she seems to be interested in weaving various and ongoing storylines all together, kind of like how things work in real life. Or soap operas.

So once again, Cricket Bro gets involved in Mark’s life. Both he and professor Sharp have already made brief appearances during the current zebra muscle story, but they we’re linked more to Diana then to Mark. We don’t know if they are connected in some way with the zebra mussels, but there seems to be no connection so far. So, yes what is this great idea? And given their past relationship, why would Cricket Bro want to pass on anything positive to Mark and why would Mark believe anything Cricket Bro has to say?

Revenge of the land shrimp

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Oh, do we really wanna go there? I’m sure Jules had fun with today’s strip. By the way, some of you will rejoice, because writing on a smartphone really sucks! So there won’t be much here.

Considering how Mark and Rob parted in Palm Springs, I suppose we should be surprised at Rob’s animated greeting. Well, I am as unsure as Mark must be. The obvious answer would be he is laying some kind of elaborate trap for Mark.

On the other hand, Professor Sharp walked off with Mark’s phone the first time they met.

I’m surprised Mark didn’t change his number! This is what Mark gets for listening to Rusty and submitting the video that started this whole thing.

Here is the Weekly Recap and Sunday Nature Talk

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We left Mark the previous week planning Operation Poinsettia. This past week, we watched Caroline and hubby Honest Ernest complain to Violet Cheshire about Cherry’s interference with their attempt to eradicate the hive of bees. Through guileless honesty or naïve ignorance, instead of just letting Cherry move the bees and then waiting for the check in the mail, the couple blamed Cherry for their failure, provoking Violet to revoke the contract and withhold their pay. Cherry, who happened to stumble into this ad-hoc anger management session, was easily suborned by Violet (with an unspoken agreement to overlook Cherry’s actions) into offering false testimony to support Violet’s underhanded reasoning. This exposed a willingness in Cherry to put her job over her integrity. But this collusion now lays her open to extortion, if not dismissal, for being corrupt.

Ironically, it is Caroline and Ernest who have the moral high ground here, however contemptable they personally are. They had a (presumably) legal contract and attempted to fulfill it, only to be stymied (on possibly illegal grounds) by Cherry and Mark. Instead of accepting payment for something they did not do, they sought redress with Violet. They wind losing out, but getting a half-hearted hint for more jobs. And Cherry thinks she has saved her job. My question to all this is whether Jules Rivera had this in mind. While you ponder that, check this out:

okay, not the usual “let’s talk about pandas” routine, but a replay of the blockchain-nft connection to climate change, brought up several weeks ago when Diana was fretting over the misuse of her salary by her so-called friend and employer, Professor Bee Sharp. It’s quite right and fine to bring up the subject, one that I think most of us truly were not aware of. And that’s good. But it would also have been helpful for some suggestions for what we can do about it.

Are we finally done with the bee story?

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I’m visiting my dad down in Virginia for the next two weeks, but I’ll do my best to keep posting. If I miss a day or post late, at least you know why. Otherwise, Happy New Year!

Well, the scam worked. Caroline and Honest Ernest have been humiliated and bamboozled. Cherry believes she found a kink in Violet’s personality that she can manipulate, whereas Violet must certainly know she has found a chink in Cherry’s ethical armor she can twist.

If Caroline and Ernest were not such grasping clods, it would be easy to feel sorry for them. As for the renewed relationship of Cherry and Violet, I’m not seeing anything to be proud of. “Saved budgets“? How about “Ripped off client“? Cherry should understand that, as she was also ripped off by Violet.