Frankly, I don’t know why they would want to help Honest Ernest, unless it was to help him sink into a deep hole. But, Cherry still has her job with the Sunny Soleil Society to keep. Maybe she could look for other clients, but I don’t imagine there are too many paying customers in that sleepy little village.

Are you confused by the storyline? Of course! Mark and Cherry have magically transferred into the Cherry and the Runaway Peacock story, leaving the lake pollution story, as well as the probably perplexed golfing party, on the other side of the comics page. I reckon Mark got his “you’re killing my environment” anger out of his system for the time being, as he seems happy to devote some time to this trivial event. But credit to Rivera for continuity: Mark’s facial scrapes from his fight with Brett remain in place.

Art Dept. Sometimes I wonder if Rivera uses marionettes as models for the characters. I mean, check out Mark in panel 3. And there are more of those “lines beyond the borders” today, too. One might think that Syndicate editors would catch that stuff and fix it before publishing. But that might be optimistic. It could be they just slap the strips online and send them out to the newspapers, as is.