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Monthly Archives: March 2025

And they call it “Cryptid Love”

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Regular reader Daniel Pellissier commented yesterday on a general improvement in the artwork, especially the water scenes. Indeed, Rivera does a good job with that. The above-ground scenes also seem better handled in regards to composition (e.g. panel 1), figures, and general ambiance. However, it is still unfortunate that the flora are treated merely as background and stage-scenery. It would be nice to at least show more articulation, if not better resemblance to actual types of trees and bushes.

Today’s submission looks like we are going to have another week of filling in space before a new adventure begins. As scintillating as it may be to watch Rusty once again moan about his inability to prove the existence of cryptids to his friends, there likely won’t be much to say on a daily basis. 

As you might recall⏤assuming you have not dozed off⏤we went through a full week of Mark and Cherry going on a nature walk, then a full week of Mark talking on the phone with Bill Ellis about a new assignment. Now, it looks like we might get a third full week of fluff!

I sure hope I am wrong. But if not, I may gather the strips for the rest of the week and post a combined blog on Saturday. Before you write, I recognize the illogic of that statement. I clearly cannot know what the rest of the week’s strips will show before they are published. I’ll let you know tomorrow.

Whoopsie!

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Well, here I am eating my words, or at least blushing for forgetting to take into consideration that the Sunday chat subject (i.e. catfish) could also apply to upcoming panels!

And we learn that Cherry’s two sisters are now going to live somewhere in Lost Forest. Does that mean they will figure into some of the ongoing stories of Cherry, and maybe Mark? That could present some needed variety in Cherry’s stories. As Rivera defined her, Cherry was originally pretty feisty, but her personna has flattened out lately. This seems to be a lot of what happened to the “original” Cherry of Ed Dodd’s days, when she was an outdoor gal, frolicked with a pet bear, and camped in the forest. Later, she got more domesticated and less interesting. Rivera’s Cherry is not yet the stay-at-home figure of old, and I see no reason to believe she will evolve that way.

But Olive still retains a lot of her independence and aggression. At least, she is drawn that way. So, I hope she can hold on to her personality if she is going to be a recurring figure in the Lost Forest landscape.

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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This week was the prologue for a new Mark Trail adventure. I’d like to think that it has the makings for real suspense and action, but I can only beat up on myself so much. Bill Ellis called Mark and spent most of the time this week stroking Mark’s somewhat cautious nature to get him to accept a speaking engagement at a technology conference in New York City. The topic is about artificial intelligence and the environment (so I am calling this adventure “A-I A-I Oh!” Catchy, huh?)  Mark was properly skeptical, as he could only speak on the negative effects of AI on the environment. Ellis told Mark he will get a big payday for the talk. Mark was even more skeptical and dismayed to learn that the conference is hosted by long-time serial nemesis, Cricket Bro. Bill Ellis must get his kicks making Mark squirm.

In spite of mounting pressure all week, Mark found a clumsy, if effective way to back out of the engagement (“let me think about it“), only to be undone when Cherry suddenly popped up to announce they had an emergency water heater leak that required a lot of money to fix. The last image we saw was an unhappy Mark giving in to Bill Ellis. NYC, here we come!

Was anybody looking for river giants, as Mark concludes? I wasn’t and I don’t recall Mark being curious any time recently. Until now, of course. Anyway, we get a topic that is unrelated to the current or most recent adventures. Unrelated nature topics were common in pre-Rivera times, whereas Rivera often focuses on creatures and environs related to Mark’s or Cherry’s current adventure and location.

And that is a good thing, I believe. Why? Well, it provides continuity throughout the entire week, and it serves as a way to highlight aspects of the location where the current story takes place. Still, it has never been required and takes nothing away from the Sunday topic, itself. But it does make me very curious to see what Rivera comes up with for topics related to New York City.

Mark gets double-teamed.

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Oh, poor Mark. Thrown into the fires of fate by reality, or at least by a diabolus ex machina (by the way, I like that fiery symbolism in panel 4. Good imagery!). We know that sometimes reality bites. And it sure looked like Mark was about ready to turn down Bill’s proposal, too. So sorry, Mark!

As for the cost of fixing or replacing a furnace, I reckon I’d have to know more before I could say that Cherry’s estimate had any accuracy behind it. And what is a small fortune to the Trails, anyway? It would be nice to get a professional estimate before making this decision, but I have the feeling that too much reality would ruin the point of putting Mark into the position of having to accept this assignment.

Bill Ellis lays it on thick and creamy, with a straw.

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Oh, Mark. Keep your values in check and Just Say No! Don’t let Bill Ellis gaslight you again. Ask for something in your wheelhouse: There must be a stranded penguin to rescue, somewhere; a mining company possibly sinking illegal shafts on protected lands; or maybe a corrupt editor setting up rigged assignments of dubious merit, just to gin-up ratings.  Just don’t give in, Mark. We’re with you! Don’t do it, Mark!


Ellis tries to humble Mark to take the assignment.

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Last week (or so) I proposed a thought experiment about what Bill Ellis did in his spare time. I found a possibility:  Moonlighting as a meteorologist for ABC under the assumed name of Lee Goldberg.

Bill Ellis⏤when not forecasting the weather⏤doesn’t seem to treat Mark seriously. He is happy setting up Mark as a punching bag for Cricket Bro (aka Rob Bettancourt), as Mark rightly assumes. But to what end? What does Ellis get out of this besides a cut of Mark’s fee?

Nothing mentioned (so far) about how this assignment has anything to do with journalism, much less which magazine this assignment is destined for. Is Mark supposed to write up the conference for publication? It’s a puzzle. Maybe Jules Rivera is finally transitioning Mark into more of an outright, independent troubleshooter, troublemaker, “Edward Abbey” type of activist, with Ellis more as his handler or manager than an editor. So “journalist” then becomes Mark’s cover job, rather than his actual job. If so, let’s get Diana Daggers in on this as his partner. She could definitely stand some hardening up in this strip. I don’t want to see her go the way of Kelly Welly or Dirty Dyer.

Ol’ Bill Ellis gives a job, A-I-A-I-Oh!

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Clearly, Mark has a limited view on AI and has not investigated areas that might hold positive benefits, the energy-hogging data centers notwithstanding. There’s no end of people pooh-poohing and raising flags about AI’s problems. For once, Mark is right (panel 1). So there must be something else, right?

Once again, Rivera plays Mark like the Batman in those 1960s TV shows, where he fights the same circle of comic villains, over and over. We’ll have to see if this really unfolds the way it is presented or is just a smokescreen for something else. Most of you have probably recalled a prior story about Mark investigating a missing journalist and bear activity at a mountain retreat for STEM professionals, (“Bear Necessity”, begun Feb 2023), only to run into a bevy of returning guest villains and a hidden agenda.

So what is Cricket Bro’s real motive? He was the behind-the-scenes inspiration for the recent conspiracy-based manatee kidnapping farce in Florida. Do you think that Cricket Bro is looking for revenge (once again)?

Does Bill Ellis hate Mark Trail?

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Okay, I’m going to withhold judgement for just a bit. We’ll assume the tie-in could have something to do with the environmental impact of large, energy-consuming data centers that also use lots of fresh water for cooling. Or, perhaps this audience of IT professionals is interested in how AI is being used in various environmental industries and programs. Who knows? But I would bet there would already be at least a few experts on those topics at this “tech conference.”

In any event, this topic involves detailed, technical issues and policies. Is Mark at all qualified to speak on them with any authority? Investigating wild horses in Utah and uncovering a hidden data center in the desert doesn’t amount to a lot of experience, but it’s better than nothing, I reckon. 

Maybe Mark doesn’t have to be a technical expert. Maybe he can take an ethical and philosophical position, assuming he is still aware of the current issues and ideas and how they are being handled. But I share Mark’s reaction in panel 4. This is not exactly in his wheelhouse and he runs the risk of looking ignorant and incompetent. Why does Bill Ellis think Mark Trail is qualified to give such a talk in the first place?

Perhaps Bill Ellis should have suggested Mark write a “weekly column” for Teen Sparkle Magazine or have Mark investigate an active volcano, as regular readers Daniel and Downpuppy commented yesterday. 

Coming up … Bill Ellis and his red-hot offer

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I’m hoping that this offer was so red-hot that Bill had to give it to Kelly Welly, Mark’s “old timey” competitor for choice assignments. At least, she used to be, in the pre-Rivera tradition. And she did make an appearance or two in some of Rivera’s earliest Mark Trail strips, but has never been seriously retained. At first I thought that Diana Daggers was going to be the new replacement “female rival”, but maybe Rivera thought that it played up to old-school stereotypes.

In any event, I reckon we’ll learn about this bigtime assignment soon enough. But this brings up another point, doesn’t it? How is a “hot assignment” relevant to magazine publishing, unless the magazines Ellis represents have already transitioned to online? And what happened to all of those magazines Ellis represents? It’s all become just so much background, hasn’t it?

The Week in Review and the Sunday Nature Chat

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Well, if you’ve followed any of my posts this week, you may as well just skip to the Sunday strip, below. Otherwise, here goes:

Mark and Cherry, after driving to the Lost Forest Jailhouse and haranguing Rick the Bipolar Poacher and ex-beau of Cherry’s sister, Peach, decided to go on another one of their cherished nature walks. 

This one lasted most of the week (in our time, not theirs). Each day favored a different animal vignette for them to gush over, and I suppose we were invited to gush, as well.  The problem was that none of the depictions seemed especially gushable to me. Your mileage may vary, as they say. As Mark relished the idea of getting away from technology for a while, he faced the predictable consequences of a charging phone flush with left calls to answer on their return to the cabin. And wasn’t Mark surprised! Were you?

One of the featured nature walk creatures was this stag beetle. So we get some of the beetle’s lifestyle and personal likes. On the other hand … 

I thought that Rivera had realized the importance of really focusing on the creature-of-the-week by minimizing the appearance of Mark and his pointless puns, as she did last week. Well, call me Mr. Naive. Go ahead; I deserve it! Once again, it’s hard to distinguish what is important here, as the first thing I see is Mark commenting in almost every panel. I mean, honestly, Jules! Aren’t the narration boxes enough!?