After a week’s hiatus, a reminder strip is not out of line. Interestingly, it is something of a “redo” of the Saturday, September 21 strip as seen from the point of view of Sammy Spotter:
Sammy Spotter’s fear is groundless, given what we know. But since he has been portrayed as a handwringing worrywart the whole time, there is no real drama. And no real suspense, except for the mystery of how and why the lions are allowed to be outside.
I reckon that we are supposed to assume Mark explored a lot of other rooms in this mansion, even though we did not see them. Too bad, as they might have led to some interesting situations.
Thus, Rivera missed another opportunity to build drama and suspense. Wait, I take that back. There is the mystery of the whereabouts of the actors who were supposedly locked inside the house along with the lions and the director. How come neither Mark nor Sammy seem at all concerned about them?
At least last [!], we have a story with some plausible drama and surprise. And it happens to be one of Cherry’s stories! Rivera could and should do the same for Mark, and do it often.
This week Cherry and Violet met up at the Sunny Soleil Society to confab about the kittens, with Violet exhibiting an allergy to cat fur. Doc Davis then popped in (as they do in family sitcoms) to lend support and pledge birth control services when it is the right time to do so.
Suddenly, an imperious woman also popped into the room with a take-no-prisoners attitude and demanded that Violet and Cherry remove the kittens forthwith. It seems that she owns the Sunny Soleil Society. In Saturday’s strip, Rivera landed a second hit by revealing she is Violet’s mother! Finally, mom gave Violet 24 hours to remove the kittens, or else!
As far as I can recall, there have been a few prior moments of drama in Cherry’s stories: When she first tangled with Violet regarding the survival of her plantings, and when Violet threatened to terminate a hive of bees stuck to a commemorative statue in the Society’s garden. Yet, these few examples seem to beat Mark’s score.
That’s about it for the week. You’ll have to scroll through the dailies to pick up on my usual critiques of the art and story elements. Otherwise, we should be returning to Mark’s story on Monday. Until then, enjoy today’s Sunday nature outing.
Most people get nervous around any snakes, even harmless green snakes in their back yard. It’s a fear bred into us over the millennia. I’ve known people who moved out of a state because of snake sightings in their yard. But pit vipers (rattlesnakes, water moccasins, cottonmouths) are not to be trifled with.
The information today is good, if obvious. But sometimes, we need to be reminded of the obvious! Maybe focus more on the topic (safety around rattle snakes), itself, and skip the gratuitous “why they are important” stuff. For example, what should you wear when walking in areas where rattlesnakes proliferate? Or how about a tip on what not to do if bitten. Rivera can devote another Sunday sheet on the positive benefits of snakes.
Well, Violet did mention her mother in Monday’s strip; but it is something of a surprise to learn this crank is her mom. Here I was thinking that purple is just the company’s official color. But it does clarify the company’s ownership: The Sunny Soleil Society is a family affair.
Perhaps that might also explain the mysterious, solitary appearance of an old man during Cherry’s first meeting with Violet (4/29/21).
In this sequence, Violet had a flashback where she was seated next to an older man reading Mark’s email. Note his clever reference to Mark’s “two fists o’ justice.” I didn’t know for sure who this man was, but it now makes sense that it is her father. Maybe we’ll find out for certain when Cherry’s adventure resumes. But, I have to give credit to Rivera for dishing out her own two days o’ drama. About time!
Art Dept. A big “Yuck!” for panel 1 in today’s strip. It’s as if Rivera is deliberatelytrying to destroy the drama she has finally been able to create with this obnoxious, cloying composition.
Who knew the Sunny Soleil Society was owned by one person!?! Well, I suppose it could be. This is a new wrinkle in the story. I reckon Madam Drama showed up, after all. It’s not often we get to see a new character. Victoria Vex is certainly correctly named.
I’m guessing this cartoonish Victoria Vex symbolizes the popular perception of HOAs as authoritative and unsympathetic. Remember that the Sunny Soleil Society was originally defined in this strip (see 4/27/21) as managing the HOA for the local Lost Forest village. Violet is the overseer of the company. Looking back, Violet, herself, was more imperious and decidedly more capably “hands-on” than she appears these days (see 4/30/21).
Art Dept. As in most comic strips, the main characters get refined or redefined over time. It is a natural evolution. For example, here is what the Trail family originally looked like back in an early publicity drawing from late 2020 (click the image to see better details):
These are not quite the cartoonish characters they appear as these days, with the possible exception of Doc Davis. Unfortunately, these characterizations did not last very long.
Wednesday. Somebody get Violet some nasal spray! Is this a reverse of the Stockholm Syndrome, where Violet identifies with her captives? Does she think a fox or another cat-eating varmint will mistake her for a kitten? Well, at least Doc Davis appears to be doing his part by volunteering to fix the kittens. They won’t be able to breed if they are returned to the wild, but they will still be predator bait, right? Okay, so this story has less suspense, drama, and action than a Hallmark movie, but at least it makes sense.
Thursday. I see a parallel with Mark’s ongoing story: Cherry wants to find a home for the kittens and Mark has vowed to find “homes” for the lions.
This is the kind of insightful analysis that people pay real money for, but you get it here, for free.
Cherry shows her concern for Violet’s discomfort and health by bringing the kittens to her house (a building which seems to change size from one day to the next). Cherry’s dad, Doc Davis, is doing his job as Mr. Deal Closer to ensure that Cherry and Violet don’t realize he is the one best qualified to care for the kitties!
I know what you are thinking … actually, I really don’t, but I’m just using this opening line as an excuse to slip in some specious blather that I’m passing off as inspired analysis. Anyway, as I was saying, you’re probably thinking “Rivera gives Mark Big Lions to tangle with, while Cherry winds up with a bunch of helpless little furballs.” But as we’ve seen, the lionesses have so far proven to be docile and harmless; while the kittens are more active and (innocently) harming Violet. No idea if that observation leads us anywhere.
But I’m also trying to figure out where this story is heading. I could speculate, but that requires a modicum of thought and imagination. At the moment, I have none, so I’m just going to ride along
Art Dept. Often when cartoonists show an encircled figure apparently floating in space, such as Violet in panel 1, it is meant to highlight an action or expression taking place in another area outside of our immediate view. The point is to provide the readers with a larger scale view of the environment in which the dialog or activity is occurring. In this case, it is the Sunny Soleil Society’s HQ and grounds, where Cherry and Violet are inside. We understand this encircled image is not a physical ball of some sort, floating around the yard. It is just an artistic device and a longstanding trope in comics.
Here, Rivera pokes fun at the trope by having Violet’s hanky fly outside of the circle as she sneezes, thereby suggesting that it actually does inhabit the outside space, alongside the snake. The illusion is enhanced by having the snake look at Violet (or her hanky). Without that flying hanky, the effect of the joke is less dramatic. So props to Rivera. But the less said about Violet’s image, the better. On the other hand, Rivera does a fine job depicting Violet’s suffering in panel 2. Looking at her makes me want to grab for my own nasal spray!
Leaving editorializing aside, here is what happened the past week in the Trailverse. You’ll have to read my daily posts to see the editorializing parts.
Jules Rivera reprised the scene of Mark Trail entering the “lion mansion” filled with docile lions (mostly female). He saw lions open a chest freezer and eat meat stored in it. In another room he spotted papers on a desk that he discovered was a production schedule. While holding the schedule, some kind of wind blew the paper out of his hands, out of a nearby window that was open, and down into the backyard where it landed at the feet of a recumbent lion. When Mark went outside to get the schedule, it was under the lion’s feet. Mark was able to retrieve the schedule without trouble. Holding both the paper and a video camera he had earlier found, Mark walked around to the front of the house to inform Sammy Spotter about his discoveries.
Interestingly, today we have a Sunday topic that is not related to either the current story or to the locale of the current story. It happens. This bird is widespread across most of North and all of South America, but its year-round status in limited to parts of the United States and all of South America. They don’t seem to be big fans of Canada. Go figure. The turkey vulture apparently has no syrinx (bird vocal chords), but it may hiss, grunt, or cluck. The bird is also a protected species under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. Hey! How did I get so smart? The way many of us do, I suspect: Google!
Hmmm, I’ve seen more drama in Scoobie-Doo. It’s a shame when you set up a story with promising elements of absurdity (in the literary sense), satire, and even suspense, only to let it all collapse under the weight of missed opportunities and weak execution. Well, the story is still in progress. Will Mark have to return to the clear danger of going back into that “lion’s den“? Is he going to chase that lion back into the house and lock the door to protect the public? Will Mark tell Sammy that the lions are loose?
It seems to me as if Rivera could have set up this portion of the story like a computer adventure game, where the explorer has to work through a series of mysterious rooms and areas, locating treasures and clues, while avoiding dangers along the way. So this could have been genuinely interesting and suspenseful. Yet, it has not come off that way at all.
But, we have just two very obvious “clues” after a less-than thorough search of this mansion.
The decision to have lions inside and outside of the house make no sense, given that the story was originally based on the concept of lions locked inside a house with a movie director and his actors. Nobody wanted to go into the house, not even the movie’s animal wrangler, Sammy Spotter. So Mark was tasked with making the dangerous foray into the mansion. But all of that is blown away. And given the apparently easy access outside, why would lions not be roaming the island, eating the wildlife and attacking tourists?
Art Dept. In spite of the textured coats of the sphinxlike lions, they are not very convincing, especially as they so clearly jar with the flat imagery around them, like a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling of a plain, concrete room. The artwork seems to get even more illogical. For example, in panel 1, the wall of the house extends below Mark’s right leg, suggesting that Mark is about 12 feet tall. Clearly, that was not intended, but is just careless. The small bush between Mark’s legs is just a too-cute joke.
I’m sorry, Jules, but this is pretty rank stuff, visually and textually.I went over the implausibility of the wind blowing papers from inside the house to the outside when there is no cross-current. Rivera could have just had Mark move to the window in order to better read the paper and then have a gust of wind blow it out of his hands. That would at least be plausible.
And just how do we know that this production schedule is an important clue to the whereabouts of Wingit? In panel 3, the narration box states that Mark has caught up to the paper, yet he is still inside of the house, looking out the window. In panel 4, a recumbent lioness has somehow managed to snag the schedule. How did lions get outside of the house and why are they just hanging around the yard? The notion that police would not get involved in a situation like this is totally unrealistic.
Art Dept. There isn’t much to be said on the positive side and I do not think I need to belabor the obvious. The real question is why Rivera puts out this kind of stuff when it is clear she can do much better. Sure, her syndicate is probably not paying her much money. I get that. Mark Trail is not pulling in the kind of readership and earnings that Garfield or even Luann does, nor even the endless reprints of Peanuts. So, is the lack of quality meant to be some kind of protest by Rivera? Or maybe just her indifference? That seems self-destructive.
Perhaps there is no financial incentive for her to spend more time on the strip. That depends on her contract, of course. It might even be that the syndicate, itself, doesn’t care one way or the other, for its own reasons. I certainly don’t know. It’s a shame, because there are many good ideas and approaches that Rivera has already initiated or could implement.
I’m not sure how much bravery is required to walk through a house filled with docile lions, though the basic idea is certainly unsettling. Anyway, as the story unfolds, Mark looks for more evidence of Wingit’s location. But speaking of evidence, what was on the video camera and where is it?
Mark finds another possible piece of the puzzle: a production schedule, which just happens to suddenly fly out of a surprisingly open window! OMG!! A disaster! Go figure.
Funny though, I hadn’t noticed any strong air currents inside the house that would cause this. Was Mark holding the document outside of the window to read it? Couldn’t he just turn on the room lights or use the flashlight!?
Okay, so the schedule flew out of the window. Big deal. Mark or Sammy Spotter can just go retrieve it, right? Or does there just happen to be a swimming pool that the document just happened to fly into and then just happened to turn into a soggy pile of unreadable paper mush? What will Mark do, then?
At least the house hasn’t caught fire, yet.
Art Dept. Looks like Rivera wasn’t ready to continue employing hatching to suggest darkness, volume, or strike a mood. A lost opportunity!
Well, how interesting! The lions have not only learned how to operate a chest freezer, but they have learned to eat frozen meat. If I was Mark, I’d check if that meat looks like actors. And what happened to the video camera he was looking at yesterday?
Art Dept. The artwork for the lions seems to get more questionable. However, I’m impressed by Mark’s depiction in panel 1, which has some darn good line work and a well-defined expression. Too bad that does not carry through. If only all of the artwork looked that good. However, I am very intrigued that Rivera finally decided to try her hand at introducing shadows on Mark in panel 3. They are not very well integrated into the anatomy, and the effect is too heavy-handed. But, it’s a good start, so I hope she keeps at it and uses it more to define atmosphere, volume, and drama. But don’t ask me about that left hand.
WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON IN THIS STORY?
It is easy for me to fantasize that this entire story is some kind of con game like Punk’d, where Trail is the designated mark. Allow me to post some observations and hypotheses:
1. Bill Ellis gave Mark a dodgy assignment to find a missing movie director last seen in a house filled with lions. Nobody else is available to do the job. Police can’t handle it. No professional lion tamer or private detective need apply. The assignment specifically requires Mark Trail’s participation, even though he has no qualifications for the assignment and admits to it 2. The location is a “mansion” on an exotic and picturesque island 3. Mark’s contact is a “professional” animal wrangler too afraid to deal with the lions, but declares the untrained Mark Trail can do it. Gullible Mark laps it up 4. There is supposed to be a group of actors sequestered inside the mansion with the lions by the movie director, for the sake of a movie in production, but they are nowhere to be found 5. Mark enters the house and discovers it is filled with inactive lions. He doesn’t seem disturbed by their presence, nor by the lack of actors. Maybe the lions are drugged or just senile. 6. Mark conveniently finds a video camera near the front door, reminiscent of finding the brass lamp in the well house of that great early text adventure game, Colossal Cave 7. Will the video camera provide a series of hints to help Mark locate the movie director? Or maybe it will provide a confession that this entire enterprise is a prank for a new Reality TV show, and Mark is its surprisefirstguest star!
Rivera takes the easy road to spot Mark for the ongoing bad puns. Well, why not? He’s done it before. I suppose it is logical to think this is director Wesley’s video camera that was left on the floor, as opposed to one of the likewise-missing actors in the house. But did Wingit record himself? Or was he just filming miscellaneous sequences for future use? At least Mark takes the next logical step to view the recording.
Well, I have to say that those lions certainly do look pretty relaxed; the kind of relaxation that comes after a good meal, that is!
Art Dept. One thing that has always puzzled me since Rivera took over the strip is why portions of Mark’s hair (and Cherry’s for that matter) are blue. Is blue the new gray? Does Mark color his hair? This does not resemble any kind of normal highlighting. I do recall seeing this hair convention before in some comic books here and there. Post a comment if you have some information.
I hope you discovered my belated posts for Saturday and Sunday (scroll below), as I accidentally left them in draft.
Yeah, this looks like more story padding going on; but is it? There are some really glaring issues: 1) The action in today’s episode appears to precede the events of this past Saturday, where Mark was shown alreadyinside the house. Check it out. The question here is “WTH!?” This is not a simple “What happened last week” recap. The publish date here clearly shows 09-16 in panel 3.
2) The artwork today is once again clumsy and hurried. Note Sammy Spotter in panel 1: He looks like he was drawn by somebody who didn’t know how anatomy works. Mark’s figure on the steps is not much better, looking more like a Howdy Doody marionette. And he does not have the flashlight Sammy gave him on Friday, but had on Saturday!
3) I also missed the “variable front door” situation. On Thursday and Friday, we saw double-doors with twin side windows. They changed to a single door with full-length sidelights on Saturday. Today, they are back to double-doors but with no side windows or sidelights. This is one freaky, but ugly mansion.
Rivera could probably have used the Continuity checker from Wesley Wingit’s movie set.
I just posted the blogs for Saturday and Sunday. That is, I think I either fell asleep for two days or had a server issue. I discovered Saturday and Sunday’s posts in the DRAFT folder, not online.
Mark, Rusty, and Sammy Spotter arrived by ferry on Santa Catalina Island, whereupon they wasted a bit of time debating Rusty’s place in the greater scheme. He wound up at the hotel, in any event. Mark and Sammy arrived at the “Lion Mansion” with little or no gear, save a flashlight that Mark carried inside. Pointedly, Spotter remained outside.
Mark walked into the living room, only to find a pride of lions just lounging around. Neither Mark nor the lions made any overt moves against each other, as if the they couldn’t care less. Mark found a video camera on the floor and surmised that it might be an important clue regarding movie director Wingit’s whereabouts. Once again, I’ll point out that at no point has anybody asked about the whereabouts or health of the actors that Wingit coerced to stay in the mansion. But we do have some drama building!
Art Dept. The artwork this week avoided any overt extremism, so that was good. I noticed that Friday’s strip in particular was a bit odd, with heavily-outlined figures in panel 1. This heavy outlining was not continued into panels 2 and 3. Why not? The other notable curiosity was the drawing of the lions, clearly in a different style than the rest of the artwork. The most obvious answer is that they are based on reference art/photography that has been retrofitted into the strip. As I mentioned earlier, cartoonists use reference art and images when it is helpful. And that is not controversial. James Allen, for example, made use of it, especially with cars and planes. But the best standard is blending the reference images to match the rest of the artwork. Saturday’s strip is a clear example of this disparity.
I’m not sure what Cherry is holding in panel 5, but I think it’s now legal in most states. Okay, I couldn’t resist the bad joke. Gah! This strip is rubbing off on me.
Anyway, today’s topic offers good enough advice. It’s a tough call. We found an abandoned kitten in a state park and adopted it. She lived with us for 20 years. With just one kitten, it was fairly easy. Can’t say what we would have done then with an entire litter. I think the expense of spaying & neutering would cause most of us to think twice. Sometimes I wish there were no pets.
This is rich. It’s hard to tell, but it has been daylight. Maybe it’s getting on to dusk, but shadows are rarely cast in the Trailverse. So why does Mark need a flashlight? Did the mansion lose electricity? Are all the shades drawn? I mean, we can still see the outside!
Anyway, what clue is Mark referring to? Does Mark think Wingit left a video of what he was doing or where he went? Why does Mark believe it could be Wingit’s camera or why anybody would have one?
Where to begin. We have a pride of lions just hanging around as if they are at a watering hole in a Kenyan savannah. They don’t seem at all bothered by Mark’s sudden entrance, and Mark doesn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that he can just walk in and kneel down alongside the lionesses. I suppose, if they have eaten all of the actors, they are not looking for snacks.
Mark holds the discovered video camera with the awe of Indiana Jones discovering a Peruvian golden idol. I don’t understand the mystery here. Are the lions tranqed? Maybe Wesley Wingit decided he had enough and took the actors out for dinner or maybe a quick weekender to San Diego.
Or, these are not real lions, but actors in costume, and Wingit is the alpha male on the sofa. That would mean they are part of an experiment to see if they can fool any would-be rescuers. Why? That would be because Wingit wanted to save money by not having to hire real lions for his movie.
I wonder if Rivera thinks this strip comes out once a week, since she uses half of today’s space repeating what was covered yesterday. Perhaps she thinks she is being helpful to elderly Trailheads who still read this strip and who might appreciate the reminder. On the other hand, this reiteration is also a method for padding a story to slow the pace down and help it fill out the week. Perhaps that slick, single-panel-Rusty-drop-off yesterday moved too quickly for an old comic strip like this and it just needs a breather.
Okay, so it looks like the guys did bring along some equipment! But maybe this is more than a simple flashlight. Perhaps it is like the cigarette lighter that Our Man Flint used to carry, the one that had about 98 different tools and functions built into it. In any event, it seems that Sammy Spotter, the intrepid animal wrangler, will not be participating in Mark’s assignment, after all. Maybe Mark will begin wishing he had brought along somebody useful, like Rex Scorpius.
I appreciate the fact that Rivera was able to telescope Rusty’s departure from the story in such an efficient and encapsulated fashion (panel 1). It’s a technique she should employ more often to keep a story moving along. And how Mark was able to get somebody else to pay for Rusty’s airfare and expenses for doing nothing more than hanging out should earn him an award for his powers of persuasion or maybe just bald-faced deception.
Anyway, Sammy Spotter seems a bit melodramatic, which is to say, annoying. But I love how he and Mark just showed up at the lion mansion without having any special equipment or even an obvious plan. Hmmm, I suppose they will just have to wing it?
In other news: Cherry’s concurrent story of a collection of kittens suddenly appearing from out of the bushes is mirrored in a video I just found on YouTube. Truth and Fiction meet? https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lN2MAvsOEnw
Well, the crisis thermostat is really boiling over now! Or maybe it’s freezing over? Heck, I’m just not sure what Rivera is driving at. Is this a real crisis or not?
Instead of hurrying on to solve this really big deal problem (at least for the movie studio), our intrepid group takes the time to drive out of their way to view some old houses. And now they dawdle by the shore, coddling Rusty.
Perhaps after they spend a few hours hiking around the mountains to find a Catalina fox or shrew, they might find the time to take a detour to the “lion house,” only to learn that the missing movie director snuck away to the Bahamas with one of his “production” assistants.
The Daily Trail 