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Mark displays his talent for compartmentalizing

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Well, sure. Mark has to go back to work. Is that any reason for Mark to look like he just got caught staring at Ellis’s teenage daughter? Be warned, readers, I have a few more questionable observations! 

Isn’t it time for Rivera to stop with the animal-stares-at-reader parody? Sure, it was a cute take for a while on the traditional Mark Trail habit of putting animals in the foreground of its panels. But the parody has worn itself out and now it just seems trite. Rivera: Please return to the tradition or try something new.

Second, I do like the way Rivera portrayed Ellis as a tilted and flattened image underscoring its smartphone source.

Finally, I think we might be seeing some story padding (mattress stuffing) already. It adds next to nothing to the story, itself, other than to keep reiterating Mark’s already-depicted feelings and conflicts. Sure, it’s okay to have a bit of polite catch-up, but it’s time to move on.

Here is the Weekly Recap and Sunday Nature Talk

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What began in the Lost Forest community as a widespread skin disease (possibly based on some kind of insecticide) on pets in the area quickly narrowed down to focus on the health of the Trail’s second dog, Sassy. That is to say, Rivera shifted our attention from Doc Davis’s clinic, overrun with sick pets, to the more tranquil Trail cabin. Will this mean that Doc once again gets tossed aside like an old bone for the rest of this story?
You will remember Sassy from the time when. . . well, we’re all pulling for her, right? So most of the week focused on Sassy’s rash, as Mark thumbed through what must have been one of Doc Davis’s vet medical journals to try and find cause and cure. Mark displayed his usual heroic strength in dedicating all of his time to a pursuit for which he is unqualified.  However, just at a moment of private conflict, Mark’s off-again-on-again boss, Bill Ellis, called with a new assignment (I think). Realizing that his Quest to save Sassy was just a self-serving fantasy, Mark sucked it up and returned to the real world of a paying job. Now, if you paid for the Sunday newspaper, you might as well dedicate some of your time to reading Mark’s Sunday nature chat!

Pre-Rivera Sunday strips seemed to focus more on discussions of wildlife and nature. Rivera generally follows suit, but more often she turns Sunday nature strips into PSAs. I’m sure a cave is a decent escape from an encroaching forest fire, but just how common are caves?  Moving upwind from a fire is a good bet, as is circling around a fire, if you can. Most web sites warn that trying to outrun a fire is dangerous, as fires can travel up to 20 mph. Moving downhill is safer than moving uphill. Here is a good reference I ran across: https://scoutingmagazine.org/2016/04/survival-strategies-help-escape-forest-fire/

Mark realizes that paying bills beats playing vet detective!

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The “new” Mark Trail is definitely more family-oriented, compared to his predecessor. Ironically, this might not sit that well with long-term Trailheads who used to scoff at Mark for never spending more than a few days at home before running off to a new assignment. I plead guilty to serving up some of those rude comments, but I’m not against this new wrinkle in Mark’s psyche. It isn’t just the usual “I had a great 48 hours at home, Cherry, but now I’m off to another adventure!” I even like how Rivera represented the well-drawn panel 3 as a gray, monochromatic symbol of Mark’s unenthusiastic acceptance, only to quickly bring up a polychromatic façade of enthusiasm in panel 4 as he talks with Bill. After all, you gotta keep those assignments coming in to pay the vet bills!

Okay, so it’s not as if Mark is getting sent to the Middle East for an eighteen-month deployment. But it’s something most of us can identify with:  The requirement of having to go back to work after taking time off.  The fantasy of happy independence gets kicked back in line.

A post-vacation combo

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The Trails are not the only people just back from a vacation! I fear Thursday’s strip will go down as either another Ghost-Artist Fiasco or a Deadline Disaster. Either way, the art looks slapdash. On the positive side, Rivera has decided (wisely, I think) to put Mark back into one of his own adventures and—hopefully—let Cherry and Doc Davis take command of their own mystery. But as we’ve seen before, the walls separating one story from another don’t always hold. Instead, Mark and Cherry have routinely interacted in each other’s business.

Does Rivera think our memories are so bad that we need a summary of the prior day’s strip? As for expensive medicine, sez who?!? Has Doc already determined the proper treatment?

What is more interesting is that Mark is willing to walk away from a paying assignment. However, realist Cherry will have none of it!

Look outside, Mark!

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Okay, if Honest Ernest is not behind this, it has to be “some ugly, impersonal chemical factory”, unless the Lost Forest community has reinstated using “the mosquito man” to drive his truck around town, pumping out clouds of DDT to kill mosquitos and bugs. Being the stupid, ignorant clods that we were as kids, we used to run behind that truck, trying to run catch up to the lethal haze, as if it was just some kind of cool, gray cloud.

So, what is that logo on the book?

Mark beats Doc Davis at his own game!

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Is this taking place in the 1960s? So the Trails are only now discovering that lawn chemicals can hurt animals?! Yet, Mark apparently has a fully-stocked library of scientific research materials in the cabin that prove lawn chemicals are the culprit. Without testing? Why doesn’t Doc Davis have access to this material? He could have just looked it up, rather than waste time with bothersome tests and microscopic analyses.

Where do we go from here? Will Mark and/or Doc call in the proper authorities to take over the investigation? Not yet of course. The Trails will investigate on their own, I think, to get more evidence. At that point, they would call in the authorities. Somehow, I don’t think it will play out that way.

Meanwhile, back at the Lincoln Log Ranch…

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Even if we ignore the coloring, it’s hard to see how that pile of stuff Mark was holding in Saturday’s strip turned into this white puppy today. Well, Rivera is consistent in her changeups. That is, she doesn’t mind altering things to suit the occasion or whim. The very style of the strip has changed since Rivera began back in October 2020. Even the Trail House has varied over time.

On the left is the cabin from October 2020.

On the right is the cabin from August 2021.

Then we have the cabin, today.

Also, notice how the “dramatic” cliffhanger at Doc’s office on Saturday has suddenly shifted back to the Trail cabin, where it is obviously later, since Cherry sits with Rusty and Sassy. Cherry is wearing the same clothes, so it’s possible this is later in the day. What happened in between Saturday’s strip and today? Rivera is pushing the story along. Is that a good thing? Perhaps Rivera is playing with varying the story pacing and we’ll get a shorter, faster-paced adventure this time. Sometimes you like a two-plus hour blockbuster movie and sometimes you are fine with a one-hour TV episode.

The Weekly Recap and Sunday Nature Talk

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If you missed the first panel of last Monday’s strip, you missed an interesting visual innuendo. Or not. In any event, if you missed (or skipped) this past week, read on.

Following the usual abrupt ending to a Mark Trail story, we got back to Lost Forest. No sooner did Mark and Cherry escape to the forest for a bit nature appreciation, then we learn that Doc Davis’s vet office was overrun by a multitude of pets suffering a similar rash affliction, but Doc does not know what it is or how they got it. For some reason, he has so far ignored the pets’ owners to see what they might have in common. Instead, he has asked Cherry to come in to help with the paperwork, since he also seems to have no secretary. Furthermore, Mark came charging into the vet practice with some kind of pet (perhaps a pig?) named Sassy, which also seems to be suffering from this rash. One hypothetical I offered is that this may be a result of “collateral damage” from good ol’ boy Honest Ernest, the redneck bug exterminator.

A particularly clever title panel this Sunday! While Mark can be as activist as he wants, I’m cynical enough to believe that this will not happen too often. Mostly, as nobody wants to be hit. I do think most drivers will naturally attempt to swerve, if possible. Some won’t bother. In lightly traveled locations, perhaps it is possible and even relatively safe to follow this advice.

And when did Mark move to England? I notice that the car is pulled over on the left side of the road. That should only happen if you are also driving on the left side of the road. Otherwise, it is extremely dangerous, especially near the top of what appears to be a crest in the road! I don’t think creating an even bigger traffic hazard is the right solution.

Wait your turn, Mark!

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As usual, Mr. Important must claim center stage and insist upon jumping to the front of the line, to say nothing of jumping again into a storyline that is none of his business. Such is Mark’s insecurity.

Doc is still suck on paperwork. Cherry should be interviewing the pet owners, but I’ve already covered that. Apparently, that might result in a conclusion found too soon and ruin the drama. So, we continue with the mystery. Will Mark also get involved? I hope he beats a retreat and finds his own adventure.  

Maybe Rivera is not sure that Doc (and Cherry) can carry the story alone. The same thing happened with Rusty. His Big Cryptid Adventure went nowhere, except for some comic (strip) relief. I wish that Rivera had more faith in the characters. After all, she is modeling their personalities as she sees fit.

Speaking of modeling, I notice some shading on the back of Doc and the lower areas in panel 1. Rivera rarely employs shading (or modeling). Seeing her employ a shading technique reminiscent of old-school Ben-Day dots is noteworthy. Is she experimenting? Could be a positive enhancement.

All pets sick and small

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Well, Doc Davis might get an idea if he talked with all of the pet owners to find a common thread. Hmmm, I wonder if this is leading us back to that “kill-’em-all” pest remover, “Honest Ernest”, and his truck of lethal poisons? Recall that he is the husband of Caroline, a board member on the Sunny Soleil Society. Those two were stopped from poisoning a statue-based beehive in the SSS garden. But that doesn’t mean Ernest is out of work. Maybe he expanded his business to lawn care. If Mark keeps running into his former antagonists, why can’t Cherry?

Rash decisions?

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What kind of office, vet or physician, doesn’t have a secretary of some sort? If Doc’s practice is so small, why is the office so large?

Sometimes it seems as if there is a ghost artist filling in for Rivera. I’d compare Monday’s strip to these, for example. I could every well be wrong. It’s hard to believe that the image of the man in the lab coat in the 4th panel of the July 6 strip is really Doc Davis. Sorry, just thinking out loud.

Okay, we seem to be off and running with Doc and Cherry’s adventure:  It would be great to see Cherry and Doc handle this on their own, while Mark gets sucked into another assignment, somewhere else. Like South America.

The Doc is In!

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We are hardly back from the disaster of Portland, when we are off to another adventure, this one featuring Cherry and her pop, Doc Davis. Well, we (that is to say, I) have been wondering when Rivera would get around to giving Doc more story time, and this might be that time. In vintage Mark Trail I believe Doc was retired, which suggests that this strip might represent a timeframe earlier than its previous incarnation. That would bolster the idea that Mark, himself, is still a less-than-internationally known nature journalist. I’m not sure what a whacky day is at a vet’s office, but let’s hope there is more to it than just craziness.

Form follows disfunction

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Rivera seems to have taken up the standard Mark Trail story tradition of ending an adventure by simply calling “CUT!” and, presto-change-o, we’re back in Lost Forest. I hope they got their romance satisfactorily concluded, since the batphone just rang, and they are hardly back from their vacation. Mark has not even had time to change. Oh, wait. He never changes clothes.

But this time, the call to action seems to be on Cherry’s phone, leaving Mark to once again ponder his relevance and lack of fame and fortune. And thanks for the patriotism reminder, Cherry, but Mark beat you to it in the Sunday strip.

The Weekly Recap and Sunday Nature Talk

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(edited to correct an embarrassing lack of proofreading) In case you were too busy this week, let’s review what you missed:  Some time must have passed since a runaway forest fire destroyed the Crypto Event, because the fire appears to be out, and investigators are on site. After an interrogation by an officer of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Mark and Happy Trail were not only cleared of wrongdoing, but made to feel like chumps, out of touch and underpaid. We also learned that the Crypto Brothers somehow got out of town and escaped to what appeared to be Venice Beach, California. But Cherry wants to top off this splendid vacation with Mark by spending some quality time in a rose garden while Happy spends time with Rusty. Poor Rusty!

This story appears to be in the wrap-up stage, but Rusty’s own adventure is unresolved. Perhaps Happy Trail will team up with him and they will make an exciting discovery. Perhaps they will even have enough time to get the Sunday paper and read the nature chat for today.

It would be hard to dispute the topical relevance of the bald eagle as the subject of the Sunday nature chat. Rivera makes an interesting link with Franklin’s quote and the Eagle’s near extinction. On the other hand, I don’t believe Franklin’s belief influenced pesticide manufacturers or poachers. There are a few matters of grammatical style we could quibble with here, such as the unnecessary use of quotation marks in a speech balloon and the confusion of using the noun “opportunist” in place of the adjective “opportunistic.” I appreciate Rivera’s position that it is wrong to ascribe human morality to wild animals. As the blue singer Kurt Crandall sings, “Pets ain’t people.” Yet, we keep seeing the consequences of naive people confusing pets and wild animals (such as bison and bears).

Catching up with Friday and Saturday

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Mark and Happy continue to sit side-by-side at some kind of big table, as if they are at a conference. But is this inside or somewhere outside of the house? It’s a strange look. Clearly, the F&W officer is being snarky. Some behind-the-drawing board interrogation has been going on and we’re getting only the summation.  Is Mark is too poor to rent an SUV? How could he afford cross-country airline tickets?

Story-wise, the Saturday strip ends in some kind of corny Hallmark Moment, recalling traditional Mark Trail post-adventure reunions. In other words, where is the edginess that the Reboot is supposed to deliver? Is Rivera bowing to traditional expectations or is she mocking them?

Anyway, this kind of special moment normally takes place after a story ends and Mark comes home for a few days. This may not be the conclusion of the adventure, as there are loose ends to resolve. But Rivera likes to weave multiple story threads, so this could be just the end of the Cricket Bro-NFT story arc. We still have the final resolution of The Seaside Specter to process; the Happy Trail-Crypto Bro business relationship to dissolve; and discover whether the Trail family will stick around for an actual vacation.

Once again, in the wrong place at the wrong time

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Is Happy Trail trying to push his cricket bars on the fish and wildlife officer? That’s a rather shabby, but bald, action that could go sideways, or could be laughed at. I reckon this whole thing has worked out like most of Mark’s vacations: anything but.

One other observation: Both on Tuesday and today, we have seen the F&W officer framed in a white outline. Clearly, this is to help ensure we see the background action in each panel as a visualization of the officer’s testimony. It’s a good technique.

Left holding the bag once again

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As is common in Mark Trail stories, a lot of details fall by the wayside, especially at or near the end of an adventure, and it appears that Rivera has kept up this dubious tradition of her predecessors. And there are several problems today. How is it that the game warden knows to refer to the brothers as the “Crypto Brothers”? Why does Happy Trail think Mark is also a good friend of the Crypto Brothers? How is it that Happy Trail does not understand why they would cut out without letting him know? And did the Crypto Brothers perform with Kiss?

I wonder whether Mark or Cherry ever got the business relationship between Happy Trail and those two grifters severed. Seems they were too busy doing other things, as far as I have seen.  It would have been simpler and more effective to have hired a lawyer to take care of things; but then, there would hardly be this story to tell. The story is not yet over, but it does present an interesting situation where Mark is not always successful. In fact, Mark attempted to sabotage the only real effort (by somebody else) to put a stop to the Crypto Brothers’ scheme.  Can Mark overcome these issues and finish up in the black?

How about a second serving of beaver?

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More mattress-stuffing, as even Happy Trail acts stupefied to hear the news. And why is Mark excited, having written and talked about beavers as firefighters in the past? It’s too bad that only the two Trails are here, leaving the warden to have to repeat this information to everybody else. No, wait. Mark will want that pleasure, I think. So, where is everybody else?

Maybe the Bunco Brothers are down by the river snapping photos of beavers for a new series of NFTs.

Deforestation pays off?

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I realize I am on vacation, but did I miss a day? Are they talking about the recent fire or the lumber mill fire? We’ve already been over why this had to be a new fire and not a continuation of the lumber mill fire. So why is Mark all up in arms, literally, about his father? He didn’t seem too concerned about his father during the event fire! And why does Dad need help talking to a game officer? Is he now senile?

After watching the 60 minutes episode last night on petty bureaucratic problems with deploying the Chinook helicopter as a fight fighting tool in California, maybe that state should just let a lot more goats and beavers loose in its forests, like they do up in Oregon! And the US Forestry Service can replace its pointless bear icon with Smokey the Beaver, an animal that has an actual positive role in firefighting.

The Weekly Recap and Sunday Nature Chat

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In case you missed this week, lots of stuff caught fire! Cricket Bro’s car caught fire after it hit a tree, so Mark and Professor Sharp wound up saving him. Not sure Sharp would have done that on his own. Another forest fire appeared and started burning up the event site. Panic ensued. Cherry and Mark found each other and started looking for Rusty, who was still at the halfpipe when it inconveniently fell apart…on Rusty. While trapped, he saw The Seaside Specter staring down at him. Real or hallucination? Not sure, because it was Mark and Cherry who found him. Maybe. We only saw the aftermath of the rescue, so it remains to be said by Rusty who it was who pulled him out from under the halfpipe ruin. Meanwhile, we are not sure what happened to Happy, or even Cricket Bro’s brother. Finally, it seems Sharp’s attempt to stop the scam failed, as Rivera noted that the Brothers somehow sold lots of monkey NFTs. It’s enough to make you want to stay on this Sunday’s strip for a while longer. Keep your hands in your pockets as you read the Sunday strip!

An interesting take on the goat:  not the usual overview, but a case of ‘applied goatness’, I reckon. The West Coast is going to need a hell of a lot of goats to make a significant contribution to minimizing forest fires. Still, it’s a pretty clever idea. But will they be left on their own in the forests? Will they “go native” or become feral, wild goats?

Greatest “what” of all time? I’m not sure, but it’s something to chew on.