Mark Trail demonstrates another one of his well-known techniques on how to successfully investigate wrongdoing and solve a problem. Or maybe not.

As much as I don’t want to make this a pure snark-filled diatribe, I have to say this is pretty lame plotting; to say little of the dialog. There are a number of issues we can pick on, just today. I’m not sure I have the energy for all of it. So, I’ll pick one or two.

For one thing, it seems to be that, even now, Chet Chedderson has not made a single comment about his prior entanglements with Mark; and there have been two: the Zeeba Mussels story and the Bear Necessity story, where Chet had only a walk-on cameo at the start of the story. I’m wondering if he even remembers who Mark Trail is, and if that is a deliberate decision on Rivera’s part. That is to say, why would Rivera want to cause Chedderson to not recall Mark? Readers with better minds than mine may recall that the Bear Necessity story was when Jules Rivera made the unfortunate decision to change Mark’s face from sporting his stubbled beard to the tramp-like five o’clock shadow he now has.

The strip today reads more like comments on social media. Hey! Maybe that’s deliberate, since it’s become the standard for interpersonal communication, especially among the age group this rebooted strip is supposed to be aimed at.

Art Dept. Rivera continues to play on the “Like Father Like Son” trope, coming off like the parody she likely has in mind. And I think this is the first time we’ve actually seen a golf bag (panel 2). But more important than any of this (to me) is that I think Rivera drew this manually with pen and ink, rather than a her digital tablet. The lightness and variety of lines, and the unusual hatching on Brett’s face and especially in the tree behind Mark in panel 3 lead me to this conclusion. I’m not saying she’s using old Speedball or Gillotte nibs; it’s probably a set of technical pens with different line widths. Sorry, I’m just getting a bit too geeky here. But I’d like to see her stick to using these pens, as it might loosen up her drawing and make it more interesting. Again, I could be totally wrong. Digital tablets have come a long way since I last used them.