What makes a “Prize Hog”? Size? Tenacity? Skin color? Is there such as a thing as a prize feral hog? Well, I’m not sure where today’s installment fits into the story’s chronology. It could be before yesterday’s panels or just after. Makes little difference, perhaps. The story doesn’t really advance, so much as it just fills in a few miscellaneous spots. Mark is busy scribbling notes and not taking pics. Maybe he’s made a deal with Venus Verité to get copies of her photos. Say, I wonder if Shania and Reba actually got a chance to shoot?

Art Dept. Okay, new quiz: What are those red streaks in panel 1? Why are they arranged around the panel borders and presumably pointing to Tess? I have an idea, but would like to hear yours!

Clearly, Jules Rivera is satirizing (or deriding) the shooting, as she deliberately reverses the usual sound effect from Ka Blam to B-Kam. And yes, I’m aware that we could see all of Rivera’s work as satirizing the original strip.

Next, what the heck is Verité doing in panel 3 and panel 4? Shaping her hands into a virtual frame is a longstanding technique for photographers and even artists, but she seems to be holding her frame up in the air, as if she is preparing to photograph the sky. Maybe she is? But it gets even more perplexing in panel 4, where she holds her hands up above her head, like a ballerina who forgot to pose her legs. And once again, Rivera arranges her cast in a line, or lineup (mabe like an old-fashioned police lineup?) , as if they are on stage at the end of a talent show, waiting to hear who won.

I know what you eagle-eyed Mark Trail veterans are thinking:  “Who’s that third person in the background, alongside Mark and Venus Verité?” The person is in camo, so I’m going out on a limb and suggest it is Jess, who finally caught up with the hunting party in between yesterday’s strip and today’s. There was obviously enough time for it, since Rivera skipped us past the actual hunt.

And Shania and Reba don’t seem to mind that Tess is once again hogging the limelight. But who is Venus shooting in panel 3? Mark and Jess!? Another herd of feral hogs heading towards them? A rare sighting of a Golden-cheeked Warbler? Perhaps this is yet another example—as we also see in panel 1—of everybody facing towards us, even when the action is to the rear. For example, the three gals in panel 1 stand in a common triumphal post-hunting pose, facing us. Why do that, when the rest of the party stands in their required line, behind them? It’s a curious feature, unless I am totally misunderstanding things.

Rifle enthusiasts will no doubt sharply criticize Rivera’s inability to draw accurate weapons, unless one considers the notion that she is deliberately drawing “kiddie-style” rifles that looks more like BB-guns, rather than serious rifles with sufficient stopping power.