As Charlie Brown always sighs, “Good Grief!” I reckon we can all just admit that poor Max the Manatee was never anything more than a prop, and the “save nature and wildlife” angle of Mark Trail seems to be a sham. Clearly, Mark is more concerned with his own petty feelings, rather than his job. Sounds something like real life.

Now, as I wrote earlier, I’m happy to see this story expand to include this mysterious connection with Rob “Cricket Bro” Bettencourt (even though I’d like to see new nemeses show up, in general). I state “mysterious” with regard to Cricket Bro, because Rob could not have known Mark was going to be on this assignment. However, I think Jules Rivera should complete the current Manatee Max story arc first.  If this was real life, Mark, Skeeter, and Rita would all be getting citations and federal court dates for mishandling a protected species.

Art Dept. Have you noticed those triplet lines emanating from Mark’s head in panels 1 and 3? Typologically, they reflect an emotional reaction. Mort Walker, in a half-joking book he wrote called “The Lexicon of Comicana” classified these emotive lines as plewds, a category of emenata. Cartoonists have used them since the early 20th century. They also appear in early b&w silent cartoons. Just a bit of cartoon history for you, free of charge!

Say, do you think Rivera has a ghost artist filling in for her? Some of these figures just look so different than Rivera’s usual work. But she can be quite loose with her representations, I’ll admit. And check out Mark’s pants in panel 3.