The family melodrama continues, as Cherry abandons Mark so he can have a hear-to-heart with Happy about NFTs. Turns out Happy Trail got himself into an NFT business arrangement with the stepbrother of Rob Bettancourt (aka Cricket Bro). Mark is going through his “disaster déjà vu” meltdown again. How is it that the Trails keep getting involved with these weirdos in California (and now, Oregon)? It’s not like they’re just down the road. I like the concept of overlapping storylines; it has a better ring of authenticity than the usual linear approach with the clean breaks. I think the only people who have not resurfaced are the members of the Herp Hacienda Gang (Reptilionnaire, excepting).

Unless you have a squad of writers and artists who do the actual daily work that bears your signature (and I think we can all name a few of those strips), then you have your work cut out for you. I know Rivera is capable of creative, quality work, as we can see in her earlier panels. And even now, I think that still comes through, as these two panels from Tuesday show. What I like here are: 1) the “lookback” view as we see Cherry exit towards us and looking back at Mark; and the 2) alternate “lookback view”, as we now view Cherry more or less from Mark’s point of view. There is a nice balance between people and space. Rivera keeps implied motion moving in the first panel by arranging the figures so that Cherry is exiting off to the right, as Westerners implicitly follow. This is continued in panel 2. It might not seem like a big deal, but all of these bits contribute to the overall composition and flow. That kind of planning and drawing takes time and effort to put together. I don’t know what KFS pays Rivera, but they should pay her enough to hire an assistant. Then maybe Rivera can spend more time on the drawing.

And now for something relatively different… an animal not seen before or part of the story. Interesting that the moth has such a long transformative period, yet such a short time to make its moth-mark in the world. And who would have figured scales on a moth? But that large 3-5” wingspan is quite something. I have to admit that after reading these Sunday panels, I almost always feel inspired to find out more information.