So, Mark wants a little sunshine, does he? The two squirrels in panel 1 are an obvious lead-in to the meaning of Mark’s coded phrase in panel 4 and its expected outcome. Maybe now we’ll learn what’s in Mark’s and Cherry’s backpacks. Warning: Parents may need to screen tomorrow’s strip before the kids see it.
Do I know that there are “millions” of lobster cages (a bit of an exaggeration) lost in the ocean trapping animals?” Yeah! You told us last Sunday, Mark! Don’t you remember? Okay, not every newspaper carries the Sunday strip. Our papers do not.
By the way, that’s a nicely drawn panel 1, in detail and in composition. By “happy fish”, we can accept that fish prefer swimming to getting eaten. Even though fish don’t smile, their actions and behavior have been linked by scientists through experiments to positive and negative feelings. Maybe Mark is indulging in a bit of projecting here, but he also converses with a talking snake. So, I reckon he’s entitled.
Is there anything wrong with having a Mark Trail that openly reflects on his personal beliefs (and doubts)? It certainly exhibits a degree of vulnerability usually lacking in prior Mark Trail presentations.
Okay, so Rivera combines the nature walk with the post-assignment debriefing. It’s the combo that counts. Anyway, I just hope they don’t trip over those deer decoys. Still, it’s too bad Mark ditched the hip shirt from Sunday for his wear-forever red plaid.
I also see that Mark and Cherry are sporting backpacks. What could they possibly need to carry with them on a simple nature walk, hmmm?
If you were busy this past week, let me catch you up. Mark’s water bear resort adventure (category “bear necessities”) ended in the typical Mark Trail style: Suddenly. On the previous Saturday Mark and Jeb the Journalist celebrated their rescue from “Millie” the bear, due to Andy’s just-in-time appearance. But by Monday, we found him relaxing at home, chatting online with Bill Ellis. Long-time blog follower, Daniel P. commented yesterday that Rivera did not end the story with the traditional Trail flapjack dinner at home. Indeed, Rivera has not done that for most of her stories. There seems to be two new post-adventure memes: One is Mark and Cherry returning from a nice intimate walk through Lost Forest. Perhaps their cabin isn’t soundproofed.
The second ending Rivera uses is what we had this week: Mark doling out “the rest of the story”, as he summarized the post-adventure status of various dramatis personae involved in his assignment. Perhaps Rivera could merge the old pancake tradition and the newer tell-all tradition: The Trails can have dinner at Planet Pancake as Mark delivers post-adventure anecdotes to his family. Afterwards, Mark and Cherry can take their walk as Doc Davis and Rusty sit around the cabin, waiting for their next opportunity.
Another good title panel, and the other panels are pretty well-drawn, as well. Were you surprised by Mark’s new sporty attire? It would be great to see him wear something like this or just different clothes from time to time in his daily adventures.
Do lobstermen read the comics? I have never heard of “ghost fishing”, so I did the usual online “high-school paper” research. While all of what Rivers wrote here plays out, it’s too bad she didn’t have room to note some initiatives to clean up this mess: There is the NOAA Marine Debris Program to provide locations and means for professional fishermen to safely dispose of old, obsolete gear. There are also several NGOs involved in providing technologies for safe retrieval of ghost gear in our seas and oceans. All of that deals with the larger issue of ghost gear involved in general, large-scale fishing, such as the loss or abandonment of fishing nets. And the global quantity is unknown.
The composition of panel 3 is well-designed, but since when did the Trails use venetian blinds!? Ugh.
Anyway, I have to turn to you, dear reader. I’m pretty sure Rivera deliberately makes Bill Ellis look and sound like a clueless corporate suit most of the time. But what the hell is Ellis (who looks like a marionette half the time) talking about when he mentions “those campers”? Can’t be the group of slackers and grifters at the Retreat, some of whom actually wanted to kill Mark.
And please tell me, dear reader, what Rivera is alluding to when she refers to Andy as Mark’s “Best Boy”, which we all know is an electrical or lighting assistant on film sets. I don’t get it.
Well, I have to give Rivera some credit for at least depicting Mark with signs of recent violence and damage. As I recall, the former version of Mark Trail usually got by with just a bit of mussed hair in most of his physical encounters (there were a few exceptions). Too bad Mark didn’t get his trampy beard scraped off in all of that excitement.
Okay, we’ve heard about several of the participants in Mark’s latest folly, but nothing much of Sid Stump, Holly Folly, or the Psycho Bros, perhaps the two who really should be locked up.
In closing, a request to Jules Rivera: No more third-rate puns, please! Can you at least paws them for a while?
Okay. I stand corrected, again. Rivera actually is going against tradition and trying to shine a light on the story’s aftermath. Good for her! In this case, I hope it is not a hint about Mark’s next adventure, for reasons I have explained previously.
Now are we to believe that Sharp and Chedderson allowed Mark to hang around the hospital room so he could listen in while they put together an unethical and possibly illegal deal? Sorry, I’m not buying it. Mark would have had to be snooping to get this information. But Mark isn’t that kind of guy, is he? Well, he is a reporter, after all, so of course he would snoop!
Once again, Bill Ellis seems to have not even read Mark’s report, unless Mark omitted the shenanigans that took place on this adventure. And Mark is being very modest with Ellis. Why?
Mark must have a short—or selective—memory. Sid Stump’s knock-down temper tantrum when Mark asked about emergency care following the cliff collapse seems to have dropped by the wayside, as did Jeb Jeder’s own testimony on Stump. For that matter, it was never explained just why all of Mark’s previous “villains” happened to show up at this resort. That includes the Shipping Magnate and his assistant, both of whom made an appearance and quickly disappeared from the story.
As far as Mark’s warnings about AI are concerned, frankly, the evidence is not there. Sure, Jeb went on and on, but in the end, he wound up doubting his own research. And Mark is hardly a technology expert.
“Honey? This ad in True Tech magazine sounds like an interesting vacation idea: ‘Plan a stay at Sid Stump’s Bet Your Life Resort!’”
“But Dear, that sounds a bit extreme, doesn’t it? It must be a joke. Right?”
“Aw, Pat, don’t be such a downer. Just listen to this description!”
‘– Enjoy morning runs (whether you want to or not) as you try to avoid wild bears scrounging the resort grounds looking for food scraps and people slower than you!
— Experience excitement and romance hiking on the Cliffs of Broken Hearts and Legs!
— Have a chance to take lunch or get into an impromptu fight with our founder and resident sociopath, Sid Stump.
— Explore the potential of Man-versus-Nature as you try to make your way through our King-of-The-Forest obstacle course without getting crushed by boulders toppled by our good-natured staff or eaten by bears hoping you trip on the root traps scattered around the forest floor.
–It’s a once-in-a-lifetime and possibly last-in-a-lifetime vacation you won’t forget!’”
“Well, okay, I guess. Do they have child care?”
He shoots, he scores! (feel free to add your own sports meme) Just as I thought: a typical ending for a Mark Trail Adventure. Will we learn what happened to Jeb, Sid, and the supporting cast of bums?
Otherwise, I like the composition and concept behind panel 1, with the Bill Ellis call-out. Unfortunately, the unnecessary narration box ruins the scene, since Bill Ellis’ discussion could have been placed there, and the mallard and side yard would not be obscured. Several of you readers (well, at least one or two) have often complained of Rivera’s overuse of narration boxes. Apparently, she is not reading or listening.
This past week the fight between nut-job Sid Stump and Mark “Don’t call me Markey” Trail continued. An invisible cliff suddenly materialized around Stump and Trail as they duked it out. In addition, a very large boulder just happened to show up on the edge of the cliff. Jared and Cricket Bro rushed up to push it over onto Mark. But things didn’t work out that way.
The fight suddenly came to a halt when Millie, the so-named and so-presumed friendly bear, turned out to not be as jovial and hail-well-met as journalist Jebediah Jeter thought. Everybody found a reason to quickly be someplace else. As if there wasn’t enough “suddenness”, when the bear came bearing down on Mark and Jeb, Andy the St. Bernard suddenly teleported into the chase to to put a stop to it! I have to say (along with many others) that this was not a high point in Rivera’s animal drawing career. The bear, specifically, looks comical, even inept.
Are we now at the end of another adventure? In the pre-Rivera era of Mark Trail, I would say Yes! Mark’s adventures often ended abruptly with little attempt to tie up loose ends before his sudden reappearance back home in Lost Forest. So while we wait for Monday’s strip, let’s check in with the Sunday submission.
Okay, we have a pretty nice “classic” Sunday nature presentation with Mark, and another good title panel. Clearly, the animals shown here are very well depicted, especially compared to the cartoonish depictions of the bear in the daily strips. Why is that?
I’m not sure. Maybe Rivera puts more time in on the Sunday pages and just hacks out the dailies. Doing an adventure strip take a lot of time and research. As regular Trailheads know, the prior Mark Trail artists all used assistants for such tasks as lettering, backgrounds, Sunday strips, and writing (in Allen’s case). As far as I am aware, Rivera does not employ assistants. I think that is a mistake, but I don’t know if it is because of finances, personal preference, or something else. Still, there is a problem in consistency of quality in the dailies, even taking Rivera’s style into consideration. And I still don’t like the Ernest T. Bass beard.
So, Andy jumps in (as in dux ex machina) and saves the day by scaring away Millie the attacking bear. Yesterday we saw Jeb tripping over the proverbial tree root while chased by the bear. Was this a one-off? Oh, no!
Even Mark has had his share of run-ins with bears and tripping. From May 13, 2014 we see Mark demonstrating the technique. In fact, through April and May 2014 Mark seemed to experience one fall after another, trying to escape this bad news bear. Wish I had found find this strip yesterday.
I’m starting (?) to sound and think like commenters on CK. Clearly, Rivera thought it was worth the effort to use two comment boxes (panels 3 and 4) to make a joke at the expense of adding anything to the narrative. She needn’t have bothered, since the bear drawings, alone, should elicit more laughter than any joke she could publish. Compared to what Rivera normally publishes on Sundays, the bear we see here looks like it could have been drawn by Rivera’s pre-teen niece. No insult intended to her niece.
Hoo boy, in this case, I’m rooting for the bear.
Still, where is he-man Stump to show everybody why he is King of the Forest? Shouldn’t he be here, fighting off the bear to save (and humiliate) Mark and Jebediah?
Mark should know about angry bears; his backstory is replete with bad bear experiences, including the pet bear that Cherry Davis played with in Lost Forest when Mark first met her.
However, Mark should be more worried about possible dementia. He seems to have not heard—or remembered—the statements that Jeb has made about befriending a bear in the woods (going back to April 28).
At least Mark has the good sense to keep away from dangerous wild animals, unlike the many tourists in our national parks who want to take selfies beside bison, moose, and bears.
Plot-wise, the appearance of a bear puts a temporary halt to the “Whose putz is bigger?” contest between Mark and Sid. The bear also forces a halt to the Homicide Brothers’ attempt to squash Mark with a huge boulder. They decide to bail on the entire enterprise. So much for plot.
It’s interesting how characters pop in an out or move here and there so quickly. For example, where was Jeb, until now? Did Sid suddenly jump up the cliff (panel 3) or is that supposed to be a down-looking-up view? Normally, Rivera is quite good at depicting vistas and perspectives.
Mark presumes this must be a mother bear protecting her young, when Jeb already established that he is being protected by a bear. Why? How can Mark tell male from female? According to the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, females have more tapered faces (longer snouts); their legs are not as straight, thick, and long as males; and their bodies are more streamlined, less blocky. In short, this looks like a male to me. But I’m not about to look between its legs to verify my conclusion.
Okay, it was late when I put this blog together. Perhaps I should have waited until the morning, but I tend to do this at night. In any event, I saved the blog but forgot to “publish” it, so it just sat in the Draft folder all day long. As a result, Monday and Tuesday strips appear in today’s blog. Sheesh!
We continue for another week with Mark. Cherry’s story has faded for the time being; it paused in its tracks three weeks ago. Maybe it will resume next week.
Moving on to Monday’s submission, Mark’s Fist o’ Justice must be out of practice, so Sid Stump still stands and tries to deliver (but how about that alliteration, folks!?). Is this really a fight to the death as Rivera prompts in panel 1? I have to red-flag that narration box!
What are we to make of that melodramatic vocabulary? Perhaps Rivera is trying for satire (masculinity), or maybe just slipping into parody (of the Trailverse). Either way, it’s over the top. Still, Rivera has a yen for portraying tech gurus as childish, amoral knaves. For that, she is very adept. But a steady diet of this buffoonery is like eating too much. After a while, you just want to push the plate away.
OKAY! OKAY! STOP THE PRESSES! Have we moved to an alternate universe? As much as I try to stay neutral, sometimes I just lose it:
You can make up your own mind whether Mark is trying to hit Stump in panel 1 or trying to get Stump to dance.
Some commenters over on the ComicsKingdom web site noticed that Mark was not sporting any type of beard in Saturday’s strip. They were right! Whether this was a publishing accident or a deliberate decision, it seemed an odd time to shave! Frankly, I never liked Mark’s “new” beard style and much preferred the old stubble. So, Rivera: Go stubble or go clean-shaven.
This past week was—I hope—the final and true revelation of what the Water Bear Country Retreat was really created for: A fantasy arena for rich boys (think E. Musk) to see who is “king of the forest”, able to overcome animals and nature. The fact that the camp was mostly filled with 90-lb weaklings, one old fart, and two women who were clearly not in training suggested that Sid Stump wanted to ensure he had a better-than-average opportunity to win. Engineering the accident that took out the capable “Professor” Bee Sharp also helped ensure that probability. But Mark Trail would not leave.
Sid and the two Bozo Brothers (Jadsen and Rob) found Mark and Journalist Jeb Jeder in the forest, thanks to Mark shining his flashlight up into the air so it could be seen. Stump made various threats against Jeb and Mark. Meanwhile, Jeb’s bear protector was nowhere to be seen.
Stump admitted the true purpose of his work (see above) and suddenly moved against his most dangerous “competitor”—Mark—to take him out. Fortunately for Mark, Stump was also a wuss. But Mark remembered how to hit back and a right cross sent Stump stumbling in the opposite direction he intended to go. And that’s where we end the week.
When I was young, my mother sometimes took care of abandoned or injured baby birds. She nursed them until they were old enough to fly and live on their own. The baby birds would even stand on her hand as she fed them or helped them get used to flying. In one particular case, a now-healthy robin (which was also my mother’s name) flew off and that was that. But next Spring, my mother was surprised to find the same robin had returned and flew down to her when she called it. It even landed on her held out hand. I was amazed. It never happened again, however.
Moving on: Regarding Mark’s beard, keep in mind that Sunday strips are often composed weeks before they are posted, most likely before Saturday’s strip. Otherwise, good content, but rather quickly knocked out. Even Mark looks like he just woke up in time for his talk. Yeah, I’m surprised. Rivera usually takes more time on the Sunday strips. Today’s panels look like they are entries for a “Fill in for Jules Rivera Who is On Vacation” contest. No winners here.
So, Sid likes to shine his flashlight up into the sky like Mark? What’s with that, anyway? If Sid was going to sucker-punch Mark, why wouldn’t he shine the light in Mark’s face to blind him?
Of course, the real star of today’s strip is the much missed and lamented Fist o’ Justice. While the best Stump can do was hit Mark in the arm with his flashlight (oh, owie?), Mark’s good right cross soundly connected, with the apparent result that Sid may have to go in for dental implant surgery.
So, what do you think about the composition of panel 4? It’s kind of interesting and strange. On one hand, it’s like looking at a pair of blue wings, or a purplish, jagged mandala around Mark. Or maybe, with the curvy kind of flora long the sides, it would be how we see this through a fisheye lens of a camera. How ever we see it, it’s an intriguing composition. I wonder if it will lose its impact in B&W.
ADDENDUM:
Okay, here is the B&W newspaper image. Try to overlook the lack of professional lighting and photography. Well, this is just newsprint. But the overall effect is certainly different. That “jagged mandala” now looks unconvincing and out of place. The graduated shading in the panel, along with the scenery, still gives the layout something of a wraparound effect. It’s kind of like comic book art of the 1940s.
Well, somebody is finally putting his foot down about the goofiness and madness of this story! No, wait (to borrow a phrase). Mark is just upset about the madness of Sid Stump’s heroic woodsman fantasy. Well, at least he is finally getting serious. I think we can tell that from his expressions (the likes of which I haven’t seen since his first adventure, investigating his dad’s shady operation).
Now, if Mark follows through with a full follow-through and clocks Stump, I’ll breathe a bit easier, knowing that the old Mark Trail does, indeed, live on.
“Wait. You mean you’re not a crackpot who wants to destroy the world economy or rip off investors? You’re only a crackpot who wants to pretend he’s Davy Crockett!? Well, I guess the joke’s on us. So, have at it, Sid. We’re going home.”
“Not so fast, Jeb. We need a staked goat to attract the bears, and that is you.”
The Daily Trail 