It seems that TV-style humor has become the coin of the realm in Mark Trail.  Over time, Rivera has taken what was once an occasional opportunity for a chuckle or smile and moved the strip further into this turgid low-end. Rivera’s reboot of MT started as a semi-dramatic strip with strong satirical overtones and interesting embellishments (e.g. Mark’s communicating with animals). The strip quickly shed most of its seriousness and focused on satire with outlandish plots and characters (starting with “LA Confidential”).

The satirical element (which requires more thought and ingenuity) has been all but surpassed by Rivera’s fascination for simplistic gags. They don’t help. If writing satire takes too much effort, I’d love to see Rivera come back to more serious drama and let the occasional bit of satire or humor bubble up where it makes sense. What do you think?

By the way, I discovered that “Colony Collapse Disorder” is a real thing.  The EPA has an interesting information page dedicated to it: (https://www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/colony-collapse-disorder#:~:text=Colony%20Collapse%20Disorder%20is%20the,immature%20bees%20and%20the%20queen.)