Bet you didn’t see this one coming!

This is wrong on so many levels. Dang, I think I’ve written that before. Is this Groundhog Day?

Ranger Shaw now confesses to being an unofficial Grungey Boy, dumping e-waste in Lost Forest as a way to work off his own aggressions!?! Talk about a compromised investigation, I’m hoping to learn whether Shaw resigns from the service or just turns himself in.

And Ranger Shaw has never heard of recycling or selling DVDs? Donating them to friends, people he doesn’t like, public libraries, nursing homes, or even state prisons? How did he ever become a Ranger? How would you get the idea that dumping DVDs in the forest is good? At the very least, you would dump them into the river, where they would be harder to spot!

It seems to me that Rivera continues to make every male figure in this strip a loser, an incompetent, a wack job, a vigilante, or a crook. To be fair, women do not always come off much better, though Cherry does provide a positive presence, maybe more than Mark does.

The entire Trailverse must be filled with disparaging examples of humanity, only some even pretending to be good. Of course, Mark makes the attempt. So I reckon it’s Mark And Cherry Against The World. That’s a bit long for a comic strip’s title.

Ranger Shaw delivers a backhanded compliment to Mark.

Today’s dialog presents some problems for the story and Shaw’s position. I’m certainly not an aficionado of park and forestry law enforcement, but the US Forestry Service does have their own law enforcement, both uniformed and ununiformed. Even the national park service has law enforcement. So, this presentation of Ranger Shaw as weak, insecure, and ineffective makes little sense. He could have called on fellow federal law enforcement officers or even the local law, as he plainly did in the July 6 strip when he took the three Grungey Boys to the local sheriff. But then, how would Mark get involved!? Ay, there lies the rub.

As far as story is concerned, I’m holding judgment a bit. Today’s strip does not appear to provide much relevance to the story’s development. Even if Ranger Shaw only just found out about the trash, so what? Will there be some kind of consequence for Ranger Shaw as a result of his inability to do the job for which he was hired? Again, so what?

Anyway, wasn’t this story supposed to be about Rusty and Robbie’s rivalry? Rusty is probably back at home, swearing up a storm about how Mark once again sidelined him out of another one of his own adventures.