Are we going to have another week of mattress stuffing? I think that will be my new go-to word for padding a story. This stuff doesn’t move the story along. However, I give it a pass, because it focuses on Rusty and it shows that, not only is he not too young to notice girls after all, but he found enough grit to approach them.

The big question many boys and men face is “Why the hell am I afraid of approaching a member of the opposite sex?” Sure as hell I am not the guru holding that wisdom. Still, big points for Rusty’s new-found courage in the face of disaster. Next time, Rusty, talk about what the girls like to do!

On second thought, perhaps this is not mattress stuffing, after all. It is a focus on Rusty’s life, which is kind of a secondary storyline in this adventure, right? So, yeah. We’d all like to see this story (whatever the actual point here is) move along to a hoped-for successful and even action-packed conclusion. At the same time, we have to allow for some “real life” to play out a bit, here and there. Flesh on the bones, and all that.

Wow, at first, I thought “Cathy” the comic strip character, was making a cameo appearance as a skateboarder in panel 4. Having a guest cartoon character would be a first for Mark Trail, though it is often done in other strips.  And say, do you see how the stage decoration behind Happy Trail in panel 1 kind of makes him look like a turkey? I wonder if Rivera is making some kind of subliminal statement here.

I reckon that Worrywart Mark has to stick around for the surprising revelations from Professor Bee Sharp that will predictably set off the fireworks. Then Mark can go into his Hero Act again to save the family from the soon-to-be-rioters. But let’s face it: Happy Trail has lost his antennae for detecting danger.

I’m not even going to pretend to understand the disconnected aphorism in panel 3.

However, I admit that I like the way Rivera connected the ground line in panel 2 with the halfpipe curve in panel 3 to create some visual continuity.  The continuous line is not a revolutionary device, itself, but a subtle way to reinforce Rusty’s viewing in panel 2 to what he sees in panel 3:  So, we see the skateboarder through Rusty’s eyes. Except that, Rusty is in the background of panel 3. Rats! That theory is DOA.

And that’s why I wound up doing this blog instead of teaching art history classes.

Okay, why have we spent all week on this pointless back-and-forth questioning between Mark and Dad? Did Rivera recently re-watch the Da Vinci Code? Is it simply to make a transition into next week’s focus on Cherry and/or Rusty? Seems a bit much for that to me. As I’ve pointed out before, none of this is news and it all goes back to their conversation in Florida. I think we have to chalk this up to padding the ol’ storyline, something that we’ve seen in Vintage Mark Trail stories, as well. Like the flapjacks Dad brought up this past Tuesday, we can give Rivera points for keeping another old tradition going!

Also, we haven’t heard much from ol’ Doc Davis for some time. In fact, we’ve hardly heard from him at all since Rivera took over. >DING! DING! DING!<  Rivera tops off flapjacks and story padding with yet another Vintage Mark Trail tradition for the Hat Trick. Rivera is hot this week!

But no points for Doc. Nobody in their right mind makes chili in a pressure cooker.

Rivera continues to pour on the cynicism with these industrial green walls. Meanwhile, a pointless conversation ensues, as Mark describes the very reason why nobody is going to buy anything at this farce of an event; except maybe the naivest. Crypto currency and NFT markets are way down. Crypto Influences are the last people I would expect to con, since they are already part of the Crypto World.

Still, I reckon some of them might look at this like a stockbroker who buys in a slump, believing the stocks will eventually rise and pay off. But let’s face it:  The point of this adventure is to trash NFTs, block chains, and crypto currency; not to praise them. So there is clearly going to be a big hubbub.

Speaking of which, what is the pedigree of the NFTS that the Douche Brothers (as Rivera refers to them in interviews) are hawking? If it’s the crap that Cricket Bro was photographing a while ago, then I think we’ll have our casus belli for a possible riot. And let’s not overlook Professor Bee Sharp, who will be sure to offer up a stinging rebuke of the Brothers and their operation. Ladies and Gentlemen, have your drivers keep their cars running for a likely early and quick exit.

Artistically (to borrow a term), Rivera’s work seems to be shape-shifting. Based on what I wrote yesterday, I’ll take the strip on its own terms for now, though I am at a loss how to explain panel 4, where Happy Trail looks like his head is going through some kind of spatial distortion field. What happened to the lower half of the face, for goodness sakes? At first, the disconnect between the head and the mouth reminded me of that old quasi-animated TV cartoon show “Clutch Cargo”, which surrealistically featured human lips superimposed over the faces, to save on animation costs. The effect was quite amazing and eerie. You can find examples on Youtube (example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEHsXKMtDzw). The panel 4 face of Happy Trail could double as a Dick Tracy villain: “SmudgeFace” or something like that.

But look:  Even the radiance lines (panel 4) that Rivera likes to use around figures look weak and varies from her usual approach. Here is an example from a few days ago: Okay, I’m just pulling up examples and making some comparisons. I could be off-base.

But I don’t get why Happy is still acting clueless (like son, like father?) about the NFT thing, when Mark explained it do him back in Florida (March 7-11). Maybe ol’ Pop is suffering from dementia?

There was a time, starting back in the 1860s, when the artists we know as “Impressionists” were ridiculed by the traditional art world for their work which was considered childish, brutish, and unartistic. In fact, the Impressionists deliberately violated traditional norms to develop their own artistic visions. In time, these new styles became accepted and popular, influencing many artists for decades to follow. So what?

As much as Rivera’s art has been criticized, her approach is almost certainly a deliberate turning away from the traditional old-school illustrator-style of vintage Mark Trail, just as the stories have moved on (more or less). I think this is obvious. I’ve tried (now and then) to rationalize some of Rivera’s more seemingly erratic work as a possible victim of deadlines. I have no proof either way. Anyway, it is not an issue of whether Rivera can draw in a traditionally acceptable style. Clearly, as I’ve pointed out, she can. The issue for many of us is why does Rivera choose to draw this way?

We find ourselves now in a position similar to those Parisian upholders of the Official (Academic) Style of Art in the 1860s, viewing the new l’art terrible. We are perplexed, angry, and uncertain. I just read a recent article quoting Tea Fougner, an editorial director at KFS, talking about the Mark Trail makeover:

“We realized that to really continue [Ed Dodd’s] mission of bringing natural science to everyone, it was important to make Mark, Cherry and Rusty broadly relatable to today’s audience, and for them to deal not only with current events but with the kinds of issues facing millennial parents and their kids today.”

This may be a bridge too difficult for some of us to cross. KFS and Jules Rivera are targeting a younger segment of society through different storylines and subject matter, using a different aesthetic that seems to align itself more with contemporary alternative comics and Cable TV cartoons than with the traditional style favored by Dodd, Elrod, and Allen. I don’t think there is anything wrong with anybody preferring the traditional Mark Trail; it is what we grew up with. I also think it is worth trying to stick it out for a while longer, to try and understand this different approach Rivera is taking. It would be really helpful if Rivera would explain the motivations and artistic approach she chose for this strip, and possibly even why the style dramatically changed shortly after she started.