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The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Action a-plenty this past week! Mark flew into the Big Apple, impressed and overwhelmed by the city’s size and activity. Mark took on a kind of “country cousin goes to the Big City” persona. Strange.

In the airport, Mark continued to be amazed and dismayed by the crowds and the noise. His anxiety cleared up upon hearing a callout: “Someone help! Is there a nature expert in the house?” The words were music to Mark’s strained ears. He navigated around the milling crowd of passengers to make his way to the caller. There he saw a raccoon hanging on a cord from the airport’s ceiling! 

It’s a bit confusing at this point regarding the number of people involved. Hair colors kept changing, as did clothing. It’s possible these were airport skycaps, as regular reader Daniel P. suggested; or maybe animal control staff; or maybe a mix of “security” people and others. Take your pick. Also, one person was holding a cage!

As Mark approached, the raccoon fell to the floor and started running towards the cage. Along the way, the raccoon jumped up and snatched some airline peanuts that Mark apparently was holding. Then he ran into the cage. Mark was no actual help, but he also spent no time finding out what actually was going on. He just walked on! Seems odd behavior to me. Regular reader, Mark “the Contrarian Commenter”, testified that “…it appears the past 3 days the dialog and artwork is more legible,” and thought maybe a ghost artist was filling in for Rivera. That’s quite a positive comment from Mark! So, what do you think? There is certainly a brighter tone and mood, perhaps contrasting with Mark’s earlier dark mood and the darker hues seen in the first several strips this past week.

Rivera sneaks in a subtle comment on immigration into today’s nature strip dealing with pigeons. I’m afraid I’m too dense to figure out the point or significance of the special typography of the title in panel 1. Any ideas? But as she often does, Rivera links the nature subject to the locality of Mark’s current story. From what I’ve read, pigeons use a variety of navigation techniques, in addition to sensing magnetic fields. But I have no idea what “Bungle the air” means (panel 5). Do you?

In your … er, his face!

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Well, I reckon regular reader Daniel P. and I were both wrong. Those uniformed individuals look to be animal control officers. At least, that’s what I’m going with, since who else would have a cage on hand? On the other hand, why would two—presumably trained—animal control officers need assistance? Some questions just can’t be answered, like some punchlines (panel 4) shouldn’t be delivered.

Art Dept. Well, today has to be a first. Has anybody ever seen a full-face image of Mark? I certainly don’t mean the common three-quarter faces we usually see, but an actual look-in-the-mirror face (panel 2). Let me know when and where, if you recall. I also don’t mean background occurrences, either. It has to be a foreground, “portrait”-sized image.  

Mark’s full-face is a bit dodgy, as the mouth slants while the jaw remains centered. Still, this face breaks new ground in another way, as Mark “breaks the fourth wall” and appears to interact directly with us, his readers. This fourth wall narrative technique goes back at least to ancient Greek tragedy, with its Chorus being the narrator to the audience. The technique has been used ever since, in theater, movies, and animated cartoons.

But I think one of the most inventive uses of this “break the fourth wall” narration technique was in the early seasons of The Burns and Allen TV show (1950 on).  George Burns would sometimes literally step out of the set (or stand in front of it) and talk to the live audience about the episode in progress. Then he would walk back into the show. You can find episodes on YouTube. If you are lucky, you might find an episode or two where Burns goes upstairs in his garage to turn on his TV and watch some of the very show he is in. Genius! It was just surreal.