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Mark’s folly continues.

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Rivera likes to employ a “one step-back, two-steps forward” technique used by writers and producers of serialized stories. As we see here, the first panel recaps prior activity. This kind of “as we saw last time…” technique normally finds its greatest value when the interval between installments is long enough for the summary to be helpful. However, Rivera uses this recall technique even when the interval is just one day, as we see here.

Does Rivera believe that her readers have that short of a memory? A cynical belief, if true. Or is Rivera employing this technique just to pad out the story?

Aside from my simple deconstruction, I think a bigger issue here is Where The Hell Are Rita and Skeeter!? After getting knocked down by the faux bear, did they just get up and head inside the store to buy Hot Cheetos and Big Gulps? They’ve had plenty of time to “recover” from getting pushed to the pavement.

But what happens if Bear #2 successfully steals the truck (along with Sam the Manatee)? Will Mark commandeer a car to follow it? Or maybe he will heroically leap onto the rear of the truck as it’s driving away and try to make his way to the cab.

Art Dept. Rivera normally has a decent sense of proportion and depth, but I don’t know what to say about panel 1 (see the January 3 strip for comparison). It’s like Rivera took saved images and simply pasted them onto the panel with little regard for cohesion. The less said about the flora, the better. Anything else (the strip or this blog) worth bringing up, dear readers?

7 thoughts on “Mark’s folly continues.”

  1. You would think in the midst of all of this story fluff and recapping that we would have actually seen the manatee in the truck.

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    • Right! You think they would have checked, as well, since these trucks do not have indoor water tanks. But they are climate-controlled. We didn’t see anybody put Max into the truck, but I’m waiting to see just how they intend to get Max out of the truck. It normally requires a crane and several people to safely move a manatee.

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  2. Since you asked George, regarding both the artwork and story line (and this will come as no surprise from me), I’m guessing Rivera spends, tops, 10-15 minutes a day working on the strip. I’m sure there is a lot of copy paste going on. Time spent on story line and dialog is also minimal. The rich heritage of the artwork of the past, is long gone from the Dodd & Elrod days as all true Trail heads can see.

    Whether on line or in the paper, I give no more than a cursory look. It simply does not merit it. There is no sense of the Great Outdoors, if you know what I mean. No real adventures. I’d ask folks who are new to Mark Trail and readers of your blog to look at pre 2020 Mark Trail comics. Especially back to the days of Dodd and Elrod. The contrast will smack you in the face. The lack of effort becomes very stark and obvious.

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    • Fair points, Mark! From our standpoint, Rivera is a nearly complete departure from the Dodd-style and approach. And yeah, the outdoorsy “nature” aspect of the strip is often reduced to a kind of stage-like decoration. On the other hand, I think Rivera has tried to get Mark involved in more “out-of-the-forest”, contemporary issues, though even when he is in his traditional habitat, nature seems to take a back seat. That does not excuse the cursory drawing and light storylines. Well, as far as storylines go, I don’t find them too terribly worse than a lot of the pre-Rivera tales. It’s just that, tied in with the art, it rankles more. If you can’t put in the time for better art, at least put in the time for better plotting.

      As of this date, the vintage Mark Trail strips you refer to are still not available on ComicsKingdom. Readers can check out our own archives, though they only start in January 2013, during the late Elrod period. I found Elrod’s work often clumsy, compared to Dodd or even Allen, but it was still in the Dodd Tradition (much of which was drawn by Tom Hill).

      Too bad there are virtually no reprint books as we find for several other vintage comic strips.

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  3. George, I have a problem with ComicsKingdom as they require payment. Last time I checked they do not have the old classic strips. Interesting about Tim Hill being the illustrator! I did not know that. In any case, I daily check your blog and appreciate it. Keep up the good work.

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    • Thanks, Mark! I appreciate the support (and welcome criticism). As for CK, you can sign up for a free account, but it limits how many strips you can view in a given period (I forget how many). I’ve found that sometimes I can view more without signing in. Signing in lets you establish “favorites” for quicker access. I’m not in that big a hurry, so I no longer bother. Unfortunately, CK is the only place that I know of to find regular Mark Trail posts and, eventually, resuming the “Legacy” strips (though I think they only go back to about 1971. Somebody correct me if I’m in error).

      There is another site, which is also a subscription site: Newspapers.com. It has two levels of subscriptions. At the bottom is a link to “Subscribe.” Essentially, this is really an archive of newspapers from all over the US. going back a few hundred years or so. Therefore, you can search for “Mark Trail” and it shows newspapers that carried the strip. Then start digging into the newspapers. This may be more work (and more expense) than a casual reader would care to invest. To be honest, I have not yet done so. It’s a shame there are no reprint books to purchase.

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