Cherry’s adventures are—by design—shorter and simpler than Mark’s, since the strip is called Mark Trail and not Cherry Trail (or is it Cherry Davis?). Doesn’t mean they have no substance to them, but a fair bit of detail and storyline has to be abbreviated or merely hinted at, as we are seeing here. Still, I think it is worth giving credit to Jules Rivera for the innovation of maintaining two parallel, but different, storylines. I cannot recall any other strips trying to do this, at least this clearly.
As for today, it seems that Cherry’s subterfuge has just been kicked by Violet. It’s interesting that Cherry referred to the backyard as a garden. It certainly looks like a field of grass to me. On the other hand, people overseas usually refer to their back yards as gardens, even if they do not have a traditional flower or vegetable garden. One Italian word for backyard is il giardino.
As this is an adventure comic strip, the focus must be on action, so we have apparently been relieved of watching Doc Davis conduct additional tests and validations, and we can just move on to the conclusion: Sassy got her rash in this specific yard. I wonder if that is the case for all of the other pets in the area who got a rash. Did they all hang out at Violet’s poi pond?
And in spite of their history, Cherry actually thinks that Violet will overlook her sneaky fact-finding methodology and accept her conclusion? And is Cherry really certain? Panel 2 suggests otherwise. Okay, let’s see how this turns out.
I may have to eat my words, or at least, some of them. Turns out that rampaging animal escapes can happen and go on for several days. The Charlotte Observer reports that a dangerous rodeo bull escaped from a stockyard in Norwood, North Carolina this past Thursday and is still on the loose as far as I can tell. That bull is not to be trifled with; but so far, there are no sightings! The top speed of bulls and elephants is pretty close (30 for Dumbo and 35 for Ferdinand), though an elephant has less endurance for long runs. Either way, I’m standing out of their way!
This week we saw Mark the Worry-wort communicating with Diana (wherever she is) about how to save Rex, when Mark suddenly got a phone call from Bill Ellis saying that the rampaging elephant is possibly headed for the Tiger Touch Center. If this were a dark comedy, the elephant will break through the perimeter and squash both Tess and Rex, solving Mark’s problem and satisfying many readers.
Logically, if this elephant has been sighted, why can’t it be trapped or tranqed? Some of you should recall that that’s what Mark did to an escaping elephant a few years back when a circus train derailed, disgorging inebriated clowns and a variety of animals. But enough of that. Here is today’s nature talk.
It is politically backward and destructive for politicians to oppose dealing with climate change, for whatever reason they care to claim. Of course, the first thought is that they do it to pander to their voter base, rather than help them understand the problem. I reckon a lot of this opposition is based on reinforcing our country’s long-standing distrust of experts and education, as we have seen in other areas of life. It’s an amazing statement of faith in the glory of ignorance and a cynical reliance upon authority. It’s good to be skeptical when addressing new or important concerns. It’s another to be intransigent when the overwhelming evidence says otherwise.
The notion that an elephant can simply run across the continental United States, unimpeded, pushes the boundaries of fantasy. Panel 3 is a leading question: How often would Mark see an elephant in any context, must less witness any abuse of an elephant…recently!? It’s been almost a decade since Mark was last in Africa. I suppose Rivera had to find a way to segue to the presumed misuse of tiger cubs, hence the “other animals” comment. But that stretches credulity in so many ways.
This also begs the question: Exactly how would Tess have provoked an elephant, since they are presumably not part of her menagerie and elephants do not normally roam around this country like fox or deer. So, elephants never forget? Is this a variant on the old joke about a kid who picked on an elephant at the zoo, only to be recognized decades later and assaulted with water by the same elephant when the grownup kid revisited the zoo?
[edits below] Really now?!? How could there be a rampaging elephant on the loose, anywhere in the United States for more than a day or two, at most? If zoo staff, the DNR, and the State Police could not track it down, private hunters by the score would not pass up this opportunity to be out in trucks, ATVs, and private planes, all hoping to at least pinpoint the panicking pachyderm.
Would Mark abandon an assignment in mid-stream just to hunt down a crazed elephant? Would he abandon Diana and Rex for a story? I reckon this might be a test of Mark’s journalistic ethics and professionalism. Or maybe not. Free-lance journalists are just hired hands and go where they are told, when they are told, and to quit whining about it. In any event, Mark doesn’t know how to solve his current problem, so it might be time to cut bait.
[added] On the other hand, he is already in Texas. Maybe the elephant will suddenly come crashing into the Tiger Touch Center and really create some excitement!
Maybe Rivera has been watching old episodes of Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties. I have to say that this is an awful lot of melodrama for a situation that has yet to look threatening to Rex: No locked gates, no 30 foot walls, no deep dungeon, no chains, no knock-out drugs. If Rivera expects us to believe there really is an actual threat against Rex, it would be a good idea to show some of it. A bit of seduction and an arched eyebrow hardly constitute a mortal threat. Frankly, a little seduction may do Rex some good, based on what we’ve seen of his personal life.
Now, I’m not completely sure about the white “cut out” highlighting around Mark in panel 4, except that Rivera must be using it as a visual device to offset his “actual” presence from the “mental image” of Rex and Mark sharing an intimate moment with pet dog pictures. She has drawn several “flashback” scenes, but this is the first one I’ve seen using this outlining. I don’t think it is very convincing as a temporal border. Rivera would be better off using a large thought balloon, as she has done, before.
Rather stiff, awkward drawing today. When we look at the banner of this blog site (while admitting that it is a bit stretched to fit the screen), it might be jarring to realize that it was also drawn by Rivera.
Speaking of awkward, this story has reached an uncomfortable fork in the road. It seemed to me a bit earlier that Diana must be emotionally invested in Rex, based on her subterfuge in getting Mark involved. But her advice today (from wherever the hell she is) suggests otherwise, and that she knows Rex about as well as Mark does, which is not much. Doesn’t she know anything about her boss? And what if Rex is right and they are wrong? How do they know at this point?
So, what is Diana’s motivation, other than keeping Rex’s streaming show going in order to keep her job? Is that all there is to this assignment?
Note: In case you missed it, Monday’s blog was delayed until earlier this afternoon because the Comics Kingdom site was offline. Scroll down to see my late Monday post, if you dare.
Mark has his undies in a knot over potential hanky-panky between Rex and Tess. So what!? If those two want to get familiar, it’s not any of Mark’s business. A crisis is building, even if it is enlarged by Mark’s over-reactive temperament.
As some of you know, the Comics Kingdom site went down last night (I stayed up late, hoping it would come back up). It was still down when I returned from class today, so I took a photo from the morning paper to use, instead. But as I was writing this post, the CK site came back on, so I also posted the color version. They provide an interesting visual comparison. You can tell how much Rivera is tied to working online in color, due to the lack of hatching or other B&W modeling techniques done in ink. This is not a criticism, just an observation.
Also, this is the third week running for Mark’s story, rather than returning to Cherry’s adventure after two weeks, which has been Rivera’s common pacing.
Anyway, I’m wondering if this strip is taking hints from Gilligan’s Island, where whatever is needed (or worn) conveniently shows up in somebody’s hut? Where did this roomy caravanserai come from? Where did Mark’s laptop come from? Okay, maybe it came from the vehicle they drove in. But if so, why is Mark zooming Diana? Isn’t she waiting out in the car? Wouldn’t Mark have seen her when he went to get his equipment? Or did Diana walk all the way back to camp? Or did she take the car? If so, when did Mark get all this equipment? So many questions and so few answers!
(I’m recovering from all that typing on Saturday!) For this past week, Mark pretended to know how to manipulate a video camera while Tess seduced Rex during a tour of the Tiger Touch Center. Yet Mark did little actual filming. He spent most of the time talking to himself about animal abuse and possible quackeries at the Center. He was also bothered by the sensual manipulation of VulnerableRex by Temptress Tess. Mark feared that Rex might be drawn into Tess’s cult (for which no evidence has yet appeared), as Diana Daggers feared. What to do, oh what to do? Rivera ended this two-week’s story arc with Tess looking over her shoulder at Mark with an arched eyebrow and sly smile. Is she confirming Mark’s suspicions or recognizing Mark’s ulterior motives? On Monday we go back to Cherry’s story and see whether she and Doc have made any progress in proving the source of the pet rash. But, to help you transition from Mark’s reality to Cherry’s, first rest your eyes on the Sunday Nature Chat.
In Minnesota, it is legal to trap and remove live raccoons from your city property. I’m all for that. As far as killing them is concerned, that depends on the circumstances. “Inhumane” is a ridiculous and erroneous term. A better word is “cruel”. I have a younger brother who actually leaves food out for raccoons, though away from his house. Well, truth be told, my father does the same thing, and also away from his house. I think it is a bad idea. Wild animals are not to be coddled or trifled with. Get a pet cat, if you must, preferably an aggressive one that will patrol your yard at night and scare away the raccoons. “Here first” is also an over-used and simplistic argument. Rattlesnakes and poison ivy may also have been here first, but I wouldn’t let them continue to exist on my property.
“This place is trouble. Volunteers who don’t get paid, tiger cubs that get held, and people that touch each other. What next, dancing!?” Mark is starting to sound like a hardline Baptist preacher. What he doesn’t looklike is a producer filming a show. Methinks Tess has Mark’s number.
Optional: Some thoughts on the writing in Mark Trail. Read at your own risk, or skip it, entirely!
A good adventure story almost always features a hero who suffers through obstacles (such as traps, villains, and lust) along the way to a hard-won victory. The original Mark Trail was a traditional adventure strip based on Mark going up against poachers, cheaters, mistaken identity, forest fires, bank robbers, and Nature, itself. The current iteration of Mark Trail is more or less in the same tradition, though it follows a quirkier path that many find unsatisfying, both in its story and art. So, I’m focusing on story today.
Jules Rivera’s approach to storytelling falls more in line with modern satirists, such as Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey, and A. Lee Martinez, who pair crazy characters with crazy plots. Good satire is hard to pull off, which is why I don’t think you see it too often. Until Gary Trudeau got tired of it all, Doonesbury was a successful satirical comic strip with continuous storylines. And it took time for Trudeau to find his groove. Pogo was another great satirical strip, though too sophisticated for many readers. Yet, neither could be called “adventure strips” in the same way as Prince Valiant, Rip Kirby, Little Orphan Annie, Popeye, or the original Mark Trail, to name a few. And none of them could be labeled satirical, either. I believe Rivera is attempting a significant goal, combining adventure with satire (think Don Quixote, Gulliver’s Travels, or Indiana Jones).
On the other hand, Rivera has made positive enhancements to the strip, such as creating more complex plots, focusing on larger issues than hillbillies stealing dogs, and hosting concurrent storylines that flesh out Cherry, Rusty, and even Doc Davis, as actual characters. That is, these family members are no longer merely space-fillers or running jokes as they were in the original strip. I think playing down (or poking fun) at Mark’s macho heroics is fine and probably compatible with younger generations. But I do bristle when Rivera goes extreme and makes Mark look like a shrinking violet or a clueless rube. In fact, this modernizing Mark Trail is what really sets off lots of readers who were happy to see the strip remain entrenched in its old-fashioned, white bread, 1950’s world as it has been, until two years ago.
Frankly, I think Rivera’s earliest efforts (such as her first story, introducing “Dad”) were more successful than recent stories. The hook of having Mark work for a collection of different magazine editors is also an inspired idea, though Rivera has not really taken advantage of its potential so far. I just don’t think Rivera has found her groove yet. Perhaps King Features could pair Rivera with a professional writer to mentor her. It would be worth their investment.
The Daily Trail 