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.