The crowed for Senator Smalls seems to keep shrinking. Maybe those that left felt a change in the air and decided to get out of the way, quick.

Anyway, Mark’s heart is in the right place. But Mark should have realized he would be setting an example for the students. He should have at least gone through the motion of first raising his hand to ask his questions before going full-on Mr. Activist. But that’s old news at this point.

Art Dept. Speaking of old news, I noticed that Rivera decided to not only revive the scenario of Mark confronting Senator Smalls, but to use a similar composition  (panel 1). Did it look familiar to you, too? Let’s take a look:  

Here is the panel from July 22, 2023, when Mark and his father first confronted the senator. The general composition and Mark’s image in today’s strip is close to the July panel. But whereas prior Mark Trail artists would have simply “cut-and-paste” the same figure for convenience, it is clear that Rivera free-handed today’s version for a different reason. And that’s fine; “reuse” is  something artists have done for thousands of years when faced with the need to duplicate the same subject. I believe it is a deliberate decision by Rivera to compositionally link the two confrontations across time.