Sometimes you read a story so amazing you just have to sit down (or stand up), take a deep breath, and ask somebody to slap you upside the head to see if you are dreaming. Then again, in this episode we are supposed to accept the fact that a raccoon supposedly found its way into an airport, located an opening in the drop-ceiling, and decided to swing on some of the electrical wiring. Until it fell.

Then the raccoon illogically decided to run towards a cage that just happened to be available, while at the same time stealing some airline peanuts from the hand of Mark, en passant. Well of course, Mark just happened to have them (Never mind that airlines have not served peanuts on flights since 2011 because of peanut allergies and the fear of massive lawsuits). And then the raccoon continued towards the cage trap, rather than skedaddling away. 

Sounds incredible? Ludicrous? Far-fetched? Well, let’s remember that Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail strip is more absurdist comedy than drama; more Crocodile Dundee than Steve Irwin: Crocodile Hunter. 

Well sure, this could turn out to be a raccoon that escaped from this very cage. But would that be just too conventional? Too predictable? Too “Ed Dodd”?

Art Dept. And furthermore, I think that Rivera’s art is not designed this way because of her inability to mimic Ed Dodd; but rather, to support the absurdist comedy of her writing (whatever we think of it). It seems to me that Rivera’s irreverent tone is designed to attract younger people to better help spread an appreciation of nature in a way that the Original Style can no longer do.