So, why aren’t Cherry and Rusty at the water park, already? Pretty sure they are not going to do any golfing.

It seems clear that the blatantly cartoony direction this strip keeps taking is an attempt to merge a gag-a-day format onto a continuity strip in order to soft-sell light, environmental/nature-oriented stories. If so, who is this directed at? Do adolescents read this? Is it even in enough papers and online sources to matter?

By most accounts, young people are already much more attuned to environmental issues, having grown up around an increasing global awareness and desire to do something positive. But the traditional Mark Trail strip, as carried on by James Allen, was not drawing new readers and was likely shrinking. Does that mean readers no longer cared for serious stories or traditional illustration-based drawing? I don’t know if King Features ever looked into it. They don’t publish information like that, anyway. Yet I don’t see how Rivera’s approach works much better. Then again, I’m not an under-40 reader.

As for the current story, once again Rivera gives us the Trail Family standing around in a row like guilty elementary school students being admonished by their teacher. And once again (panel 4), Cherry acts like the dutiful wife, all blushes and gushes, confessing what a goofball her husband, Mark, actually is. And Mark still has his backpack on, like he’s ready to go on a hike! But why is Cherry so defensive in the first place? It’s not as if Mark just claimed Chedderson is a criminal. He’s just pushing Chedderson to get a reaction.