I don’t see where Violet has ever been concerned about the health of bees; her former and recent history show just the opposite (see Monday’s strip). After all, she is the one who wanted the original hive of bees to be exterminated by Honest Ernest. Let’s face it, Violet hates bees! So why would Cherry think that revealing the true fate of the bees would create bad feelings?
As for the gratuitous narration box in panel 4, what’s being saved here? There are times when holding back can be valid (e.g. In a time of personal crisis), but this doesn’t seem like one of those times. Violet may be passive-aggressive, but she is not a child asking about Santa Claus.
I suppose that if you are trying to expand a (so far) weak storyline, then why not also pack it with pointless prattle that insults the intelligence of readers while killing their brain cells at the same time? This is like the old Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland “Let’s put on a show!” shtick, but without Mickey Rooney or Judy Garland.
As several of you know, I have always believed that expanding Cherry’s personality and role in the strip is one of Rivera’s best contributions. But I’m starting to have second thoughts. Cherry’s storylines seem to be getting more vapid, especially when compared with her earliest adventures. Maybe Cherry is “growing up” from her earlier brashness, but she’s becoming less interesting.
Is Cherry on salary with the SSS or is she putting in all this free time as charitable work which she can use to write off taxes? That is, she does have a garden and landscape business. Yet, it seems to be less and less of a necessity. This is odd, considering the fact that Mark has also not had a paying assignment for quite some time.
But I like how in panel 3 Cherry answers her own query she posited in panel 2. This rhetorical trick is popular with politicians, sales staff, and other hucksters, as it saves so much time and keeps the sucker one step behind. Cherry deftly proposes that local Lost Forest businesses should shoulder the burden of support for an activity promoting another private business (The Sunny Soleil Society, which acts on behalf of an HOA). Dang! If Cherry can pull this off, she should run for Mayor.
After all that parody (or was it just satire?), it’s nice to get back to Cherry’s more practical, logical stories that … uh, wait. What’s going on here? Didn’t we cover this, already? Cherry is virtually always outside when we see her. And as for a new foot, well, we can’t see it, because Violet’s dialog balloon is in the way (okay, that comment was just cheap sarcasm. By the way, if this strip originated in France, Rivera would probably have written that Cherry and Violet are starting off on a whole new meter. Sometimes it’s hard to constrain my wit).
Still, it’s heartwarming to see Violet once again getting her comeuppance for her hypocrisy and snobbishness; So what’s her game? All of her talk and actions about wanting to spend more time outside in nature seem disingenuous. Let’s hope we find out before the week is over.
If you were too busy this week with Thanksgiving, preparing for Winter, preparing to avoid Winter, or just watching as much “MeTV” as you could stomach, then I can fill you in on the past week’s strips.
There was not much in the Action Department; this was a week for Man Talk. Mark arrived at the De-BaitTeam’s lodge, where he met up with Duke and Cliff to discuss his idea for a men’s-only nature retreat. Based on the sad plight of the lost-then-found camper (whose name we learned is Connor), Mark expressed strong emotional rage against the bad influence of the error-prone survival guide of Tadd Crass and how it could lead to future disasters for men who live around Lost Forest. Mark must fix that!
Along the way, it came out that Connor was having relationship issues, and it was suggested that it might have led to his unwise decision to escape into Lost Forest. With that untested assumption in place, Duke and Cliff actually suggested Mark should also offer relationship advice to all of the men who are sure to sign up for the retreat (because why else would men want to go camping?) Mark’s off-the-frayed-cuff response about successful relationships was to the effect of “Look good, bring home the bacon, and don’t forget dessert.” The question remains: If this is a sample of their wisdom and experience, what does Mark want from Cliff and Duke?
Meanwhile, I had questions about the underlying purpose of the strip, itself. You’ll have to go back and read the daily posts for the details. With luck, I’ll be totally wrong.
No arguments about this from me. People continue to cuddle up to wild animals as if they are having tea with Bambi and Thumper. It’s foolish and dangerous. That includes putting food scraps on your steps or in your yard for the benefit of raccoons, possums, etc. They start showing up in greater numbers or frequency, leading to potentially bad outcomes for pets and children.
BTW, I still think Mark’s beard upgrade is cheap. If Rivera doesn’t like to stipple beards, she can just drop the whole beard thing. Mark can sport bandages from shaving with his wilderness survival knife.
When I start to wonder whether the self-parody theory of Mark Trail is just overblown babbling, Rivera publishes something like this. Where to even start? I’ll assume you are all at least as observant and perspicacious as I am (though maybe falling a bit behind my natural wit and talent for irrelevance, as is to be expected).
But just in case there are a few outliers, why in @)#! would Duke assume a nature retreat is the solution for relationship issues? Does Duke know anything about interpersonal issues that “lots of guys like Connor” have with their significant others? What the @)#! do issues with females even have to do with camping, anyway? (“So, I had a fight with Janet, right? I heard that the best way to cope was to go camping in Lost Forest. Ain’t never done that, but Billy gave me his survival guide. It’s printed on toilet paper. ‘Read it as you use it’, it says. Ain’t that a hoot!? So I went camping. Next thing I know, I woke up in a psycho ward! But Janet and me, we’re a pair once again!”)
Really, Rivera? Just what are you trying to accomplish with this line of sexist absurdity, other than to continue to make Mark look like a gullible bonehead?
Okay, in the Trailverse there appears to be an untold number of men who live in and around Lost Forest who nevertheless seem to have little or no knowledge of woods or camping. Yet, having no knowledge, they might still get inspired by a phony survival book to go camping. This might then result in them winding up in a hospital or morgue, like soon-to-be poster boy, Connor (“this could be you!”).
So fine: If Mark wants to create a training camp to help these dudes, I hope he can find enough clients with the time and ability to pay the costs. But guys who purchase $25 survival books probably don’t have the funds to pay for in-person survival training. Heck, if Mark has any business sense, he’ll call Bill Ellis to get his publishing company to help underwrite the project for the PR and Mark’s articles (Ed. note: “Why am I fantasizing about this, since the strips were already written weeks ago?!“)
Well, it’s too bad that former lost camper and current hospital patient Connor didn’t learn anything from his outdoorsmen friends, Duke and Cliff. Maybe Mark should keep that in mind if he has any plans on using them in his project.
Mark continues his rant. But how many dead campers have actually been found with Tadd’s book in their backpacks? How many lost or injured survivalists were rescued while clutching his survival guide? Has Mark done any actual research before going on this holy quest of his?
I’m starting to think this storyline is a Mark Trailparody. The whole “male dominant” nature of the comic strip comes under the microscope. Although the de-BaitTeam has a female member, she is left out of virtually all interactions with Mark, in favor of the guys. Then there is Mark continually referring to only male campers. Where women do shine is in Cherry’s stories. Kelly Welly, one-time rival reporter, seems to have checked out. Nobody knows what happened to Diana Daggers. This gender bifurcation seems odd coming from a female artist/writer working to modernize this old strip.
But wait, there’s more: In addition to his ongoing rant, Rivera offers up some sarcastic commentary in panel 4 about Mark and his “big jobs,” reading like a jab at his maturity, with an implied notion that Mark’s quest is overblown. Okay, perhaps I’m projecting here. I’m not a sociologist. Help me out, people! Am I guilty of making mountains out of mole hills? Should we take this at face value?
Tad (or Tadd) Crass sure must have been pretty popular back in the day. And like Mark, Cliff seems to think that having one career makes you unable to have a second one. Does being a former combat vet make you ineligible to be a fishing guide? Clearly, the members of the De-Bait Team don’t think so.
Well, keeping up with the times, “AI” is the bogeyman to this version of Mark Trail that the Internet was to the prior version of Mark Trail. (from February 2020)
Anyway, if Mark wants to crush Tadd’s AI-based survival guide, he might consider publishing a better one! That would give him a better chance to counter Crass’s book than starting up another boutique survival camp that only a few people can afford to attend. But where would be the story in that?
Art Dept: I won’t spend time on it, but you scan the posts from October 2021 to see what Mark, Cliff, and Duke originally looked like and draw your own conclusions.
When it comes to drawing beards, Rivera may not be your go-to artist. Her attempts at men’s facial fashion usually look like pasted-on comedy beards, and I don’t mean just Duke’s own fuzzy-wuzzy. Lost-camper-finally-with-a-name Connor (in panel 2) has a beard that looks more like a sloppy Covid mask.
I’ve commented in the past on Mark’s disaster of a five o’clock shadow. His original stubble beard was good, but possibly got too boring for Rivera. Maybe Rivera is trying to give Mark the kind of beard we see on the sweaty face of Humphrey Bogart (as Fred C. Dobbs) in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Mark doesn’t have that kind of personality, which is to the good; but I think it takes that kind of person to wear that kind of beard with any authenticity.
As for how this story is shaping up, I can’t tell. It seems like a diversion. More to the point, it feels like a sly criticism of Mark’s male-centered universe. In panel 3, Duke holds his hand beside his face in a kind of “gossip sharing” gesture with which women are often stereotypically portrayed in mass media. This is reinforced by Rivera’s comment in panel 4.
On to the next adventure! Mark offers a very effusive greeting to his friends. I was afraid that Mark might start groveling in gratitude.
So that no-name camper dude Mark and Rusty rescued is a friend of the De-Bait team!? Hoo-boy.
Anyway, it sure looks like Mark is going to try and follow through on his plans to create a survival retreat and get his “good buddies” to volunteer some of their time. Or money.
But credit where credit’s due: That drawing of Mark in panel 3 is one of the best panels Rivera has drawn. The perspective and proportions are very good and there’s nothing of the cartoony, whacko, sketchy style Rivera often uses. It would be great if Rivera repeated that quality throughout the strip.
Welcome to TW3: This Was The Week That Whoofed. The Kudzu Commander Caper came to a less-than mysterious ending, revealing that Violet Cheshire was the slanderous Kudzu Commander, all because of her need for companionship and long walks in the wilderness. But the only way she could find a solution was to slander Cherry’s reputation in order to create a reason for teaming up and going on the hunt. Violet might have gotten more mileage out of this charade, except that she bungled the job by accidentally revealing her complicity.
Squirrelly Sandy and her zombie squirrels were bribed to come along for this final act, performing more or less like an ancient Greek deity in Homer’s Odyssey: cajoling the two women, interfering in their actions, and reacting with indifference to the climax of this sad adventure. At least this adventure didn’t last ten years.
It now looks as if Rivera has wrapped up both Rustys’s (Mark’s) alien/camper story as well as Cherry’s kudzu quest. What new adventure awaits us on Monday? I don’t know, but there’s no need to wait for the Sunday nature discussion.
Okay, that’s an interesting title panel formed by turkeys sleeping in trees. We see numerous wild turkeys around the Twin Cities in the fall, even in town. They will strut along sidewalks, hang out on corners, and sometimes just stand in the street, as if daring traffic to hit them, which sometimes happens. They don’t seem particularly concerned about humans, which isn’t a good strategy for them. But seeing them fly is remarkable, both because of their appearance in flight and because it doesn’t seem like they would be capable of flying. You can ponder Mark’s politics on your own.
Pretty much every time we’ve seen Violet she has been outdoors. In fact, about the only times I recall her being inside are when Cherry first met her at the Sunny Soleil Society Headquarters and later on, when she was feeling sorry for herself in a booth at Planet Pancake. So, call me unsympathetic.
Anyway, I think Squirrelly Sandy speaks for all of us regarding this “adventure.”
Leaving aside (for the moment) Violet’s failed logic, Sandy’s theatrics, and Jules Rivera’s patronizing comment, one is left with … radioactive squirrels from Planet X.
We learn that, in spite of the continuous complaining, posturing, and smugness by Violet towards Cherry, she reluctantly felt the need for Cherry’s approval and companionship. She just has very odd ways to cultivate that need. But it might explain how Cherry still has a job with the Sunny Soleil Society after all of their confrontations.
On the other hand, this is yet another story that Rivera could have developed into a more complex and interesting adventure. She could have employed literary mystery-story devices such as red herrings, more complex and enigmatic clues, traps (real and imagined), more characters to provide additional suspects and atmosphere, and a more “deductive/detective” reveal of the culprit. Could this add another month of storyline? Sure, yet a well-scripted story is not a chore to read. But it does take more effort to compose.
Oh, wait! There is so much that is problematic here:
I may have overestimated Rivera’s plotting (or I was full of myself). Why did she go with the blatantly obvious culprit, Violet, rather than a more interesting, less obvious person, such as Ernest, Squirrelly Sandy, or somebody completely different? For example, it could have been a more aggressive environmentalist who thinks Mark and Cherry aren’t doing enough to protect Lost Forest.
Now, what’s with those creepy pet squirrels? Do they read human emotions? Are they even real squirrels? Is Rivera attempting to suggest they are like the empathic tree-cats found in David Weber’s Honor Harrington sci-fi series? (fun reading, by the way!)
How is it that Violet just happens to have a purple pen that just happens to fall to the ground? I’m surprised her dress even has a pocket.
Why is Cherry more concerned about the purple pen than the fact that Violet is being attacked by squirrels?
Will Violet try to get Squirrelly Sandy arrested for assault? (Does Lost Forest even have a police department?)
Why did Violet try to blame Cherry in the first place and then suggest this search? She could have just forged Cherry’s name to the notes, rather than make up the nom-de-plumeKudzu Commander. (That’s a cool moniker, by the way.)
Rivera leaves us with two days to explain everything before Mark takes over the story time. Then it’s another two to three weeks before we return to Cherry, by which time we’ll have forgotten the plot.
Will Violet’s explanation be something completely unexpected?
If you feel inspired, click on the Leave a Comment link and suggest some answers. Or propose pertinent questions I overlooked.
How the heck would Squirrelly Sandy know she was the last target? Otherwise, Jules Rivera seems to be making a color-pun in panel 4, equating violet with purple for the sake of the story. In reality, purple has a slightly reddish tint which is lacking in violet. They are not the same. Feel free to look it up for yourself.
I think Rivera should have written “Fun Fact: The word purple also means violet!” in panel 3. Why? Because the idea is to point a finger at Violet. But this could be just another red herring. What do you think?
Right. The squirrels are Sandy’s Lost Forest Irregulars, eh? There is a lot of contrary information online about whether peanuts (legumes) are good for squirrels. The consensus seems to be that raw (or salted) peanuts should be avoided, but roasted nuts are fine. And give them in moderation.
Anyway, how the #@(!! are the squirrels going to assist with the search? Are they trained search-and-rescue rodents? Did they graduate from Lassie U? Perhaps they have interrogation techniques we have not realized. I’m reserving judgement at this point.
With Rusty and his adventure tucked away in bed, we finally return to Cherry’s goal to find the Kudzu Crusader and help clear her name. She must have thought Mark was too tired or too busy with his own “important” plans to bother him with her trivial problems.
I suppose we do have to suffer through some nonsense and recaps to remind readers that Cherry has her own storyline in progress. Do you think the Sunny Soleil Society is paying Cherry for this extra-curricular investigation? As I recall, Violet originally blamed Cherry for this—as did a lot of the town—because of several anonymous insulting notes. Makes sense to me.
As for Squirrelly Sandy, I’d probably keep my distance, no matter what. Anybody letting wild squirrels run loose in their shop (a bakery, no less) and over their body probably is nutty, or infected. I’m with Violet on this one. Thanks, Sandy, but we’ll keep in touch over the phone.
ON THE PLUS SIDE: Rivera shows us much more of Lost Forest and its inhabitants than we saw in the past. This place is called Lost Forest, but there is no end to the number of people who find their way there. Except for Mark Trail’s former reporter nemesis, Kelly Welly, who seems to have gotten lost along the way. She was here when Rivera first took over, but she has been mostly absent ever since.
This past week was dedicated to the search-and-recovery summary, which Mark initially tried to downplay. Skipping over several details, Mark told Cherry that they found the lost camper that he had earlier surmised, in a delirious state. Mark put that off to following the bad advice in the guidebook written by former TV comedian and presumed huckster, Tadd Crass. But Mark’s ongoing discussion led to his own disclosure that what the world needs now is not love, sweet love, but a retreat for training men in forest survival techniques, as conducted by a professional. Namely, Mark.
This entire story is thus, a bit perplexing. Did Rivera concoct Rusty’s alien invasion adventure solely for the purpose of jump-starting Mark’s survival course adventure? That would trivialize Rusty’s story, right? In other words, what started out as a “Rusty” story was actually just another Mark Story with Rusty as a plot device. I must remind myself that the name of this comic strip is Mark Trail. I shouldn’t lose focus!
It just seems that every time Rusty gets some story-time thrown his way, he becomes another Charlie Brown, facing failure and disappointment. It would be nice to see things go Rusty’s way once in a while. That’s not too much to ask, is it, Jules?
It took a few moments for me to realize that the title panel is meant to be a large leaf, overlapping smaller leaves that surround it. Sometimes I just miss the pattern, like the hidden images in those autostereogram (aka “stereogram”) patterns popular back in the 1990s. Well, today’s strip looks very decorative, in a 2-D sort of way. The poured leaves are surrounded by a heavy black border, that makes them look more like they were just a big cut out. Even the trees look more like paper cutouts. But this does fit in with what appears to be Rivera’s increasingly flattened, decorative style.
Getting back to the title panel, I don’t think constructing the strip’s title using leaf veins is successful. It’s just too busy and forced. A more successful result might have been made using the stems of leaves, or maybe a combination of leaf stems plus the leaves. Well, it works in my head, anyway.
The Daily Trail 