One Big Happy Family! Another week flies by. And speaking of flying, we all spent this past week in Jadsen’s van, toting the surprisingly compliant Trail family from the airport to a location that was never brought up and never asked about. While Cherry had concerns, namby-pamby Mark said they should just go along for the ride and see what happens. Halfway through the trip, through the magic of comic strip magic, Cricket Bro suddenly revealed himself in the shotgun seat! Apparently, the Trails didn’t notice him when they all piled into the van. Real observant people, those Trails. Cricket Bro proceeded to humiliate Mark some more by telling him how Pappy Happy happened onto him and Bro Jadsen on a beach where they hit it off so well that Happy made a business deal with them and admitted he thought of them as family. This heartwarming scene took place at some point in the past, during the time Mark was ignoring his father (see Rivera’s first Mark Trail story in our archive for details.  It starts in October 2020). Of course, Happy didn’t bother to tell Mark about this arrangement back at the Florida cookout.

But if you remember, we did see clues of the relationship during the cookout sequence, where Mark was being made fun of, and was called “Markey”, the same nickname Cricket Bro taunted Mark with during their Palm Springs adventure.

Anyway, the Trails finally arrived at Jadsen’s house only to discover that Happy Trail somehow got there ahead of them! More comic strip magic. Happy confirmed his affection for the brothers, even though Mark had previously revealed—back in Florida—that the two brothers were scamming him. Now, Mark’s self-respect and self-worth hit a new low. Speaking of Low, will this story ever get off the ground?

Rivera gets top marks for her title panel. Well-conceived, with nice compositions! The topic, itself, is also well presented, even though Rivera insists upon using the metric system. If she would also include the common English system for comparison, the ignorant among us (ahem!) would have an idea how tall 80m is. Still, today’s strip provides good information. I’m sure there is the root of a truly interesting Mark Trail adventure here; and it would certainly be more interesting that the storyline we’re currently plodding through.