Throughout Jules Rivera’s tenure, Rusty has been portrayed as something of an antithesis in several ways to his traditional, prior existence. While not quite a complete break, “Traditional” Rusty seemed to be stuck in a time-warped Beaver Cleaver sensibility.

We saw in James Allen’s Mexican Vacation, aka Dirty’s Revenge (2018-2019) adventure, that Traditional Rusty was still capable of making independent decisions and actions, even in the face of danger. His courage may have been inspired a bit by his partner-in-adventure, Mara, a slightly older adolescent girl. Otherwise, Rusty was a simple youth who played a limited role as a recurring guest star. He loved nature and wanted little more than to spend time with Mark, especially fishing! Of course, the running joke was that Mark was almost always too busy.

Current Rusty holds nature in a less revered position. He dislikes fishing, is more cynical, and is much more a child of the time. Both versions of Rusty are clumsy around girls. Traditional Rusty was not a completely clueless youth when it came to current trends. Mark and Cherry were both bemused and concerned with Traditional Rusty’s attention to the Internet and social media. Current Rusty, like many kids today, live by social media and smart phones. Of course, Current Rusty is not clueless about the environment, climate change, and other ecological issues. We could see Traditional Rusty growing up to be like Mark. Current Rusty’s future is not so clear.

Traditional Rusty was marginalized (like Cherry) because the strip was about Mark and his adventures. Rivera’s aim is to flesh out Mark’s family and add more depth and variety to the strip. We get a larger picture of Rusty. In the end,  while Conventional Rusty could have been drawn wearing a Davy Crockett coonskin cap without raising anybody’s eyebrow, Current Rusty plays the role of a stereotypical modern kid more at home in the virtual reality of gaming and the Internet.

What do you think? Are these accurate assessments?

Getting back to today’s strip, spotting a Catalina Island Shrew would be a very major deal. In addition to being extremely rare (and rarely observed), they are very small and mostly nocturnal. This mammal is destined to be a Sunday nature topic!