Well! Well! Well. We didn’t get introduced to the local postmaster, after all. So much for meeting more characters in Lost Forest. Harumph!
So far, we don’t really have anykind of story going on. Sure, there was the incident with the Grungy Boys and the riding lawnmower in the woods several weeks ago, but nothing has come of that so far. Instead, we see the kind of desultory activity and dialog that can be found in Mary Worth, Judge Parker, Sally Forth, or even Hi and Lois. So why do we need any more of that!? This is supposed to be a nature-based adventure strip, right? This doesn’t even look like Rivera’s normal version of Mark Trail. Maybe Rivera could look at spinning these sisters out into their own strip where she can indulge these whimsies in greater detail and length.
I’m disappointed. It’s not that I expect to see gunfights and fisticuffs at every turn, but where is any sense of adventure? I certainly hope something appears before the week is over that provides even a touch of excitement. I know I’ve talked in the past about how the Lost Forest stories tend to be more light-hearted and comedic, but a week of this is going to really test my resolve.
I’m hoping that this week sees us return to the happy glades of Lost Forest with its gentle folk, homespun wisdom, and simple ways. Like many of you, I yearn for those halcyon days of animal and fish poaching, arson, and the occasional kidnapping. Yes, simpler times for simpler . . . uh, hold on.
I don’t know who that kid is in panel 1, but it sure doesn’t look like the kid in panel 2. When we were last at Lost Forest, Mark was chewing out Olive Pitt for doing what he would have done, had he been there: Putting a sock in Honest Ernest’s face for his provocations and bullying behavior.
And once again, Olive and Rusty go out on another walk. Apparently, having a post office in Lost Forest means you come and collect the mail. However, this gives Rivera the opportunity to introduce another character and story arc from the Lost Forest population. Well, the more the merrier, I say! These Lost Forest stories need fresh meat. But will this new story abide by the nature/environment focus of the strip’s raison d’être? Peach Pitt’s recent story about her macho hunter-turned-psycho ex-boyfriend pushed the boundaries of the focus on nature.
So, okay. Rivera got her joke strip out today. And it was a gentle, innocuous Family Circus kind of humor, too. But no more! No more joke strips this week!
Hall shall I refer to this past week: The attempted humiliation of Mark Trail? Kelly gets her oats? Message a trois? As we discovered the week before, long-time rival Kelly Welly got herself hired as Cricket Bro’s environmental advisor and Mark’s presentation preparer. Mark was led into a large, scarcely-furnished room, a bit reminiscent of the office of “Number Two” in the English TV series, The Prisoner. Only Mark was the one sitting in the imposing single chair, while Kelly and Cricket Bro hovered above him, on foot.
Kelly enjoyed putting Mark under her thumb as she defiantly touted her new-found independence and position of authority. She was no longer the second banana to Mark. Nothing wrong with that, of course, though throwing in with Cricket Bro may more likely tarnish than burnish her reputation.
Kelly’s position mutated from long-time journalistic rival to new vengeful nemesis. For his part, Cricket Bro had a good time this week showing off his new weight-lifter’s physique that he used to primp, preen, and otherwise disparage Mark’s alleged physical inferiority. Yet, Mark was not impressed.
Finally, Kelly enjoyed informing Mark that the conference was filled with pro-AI people who would not care what Mark had to say, that he would be humiliated. To his credit, Mark sluffed it all off.
A concrete-molded title panel graces this weighty discussion. Okay, enough with the puns. The topic has serious points to make. As panel 2 suggests, concrete explains a lot of why urban centers are almost always hot spots. While cities demand that science develops less harmful concrete, they could look more closely at the Romans. The ancient Romans developed a recipe for their building material that is often more durable, self-healing, and less harmful to the environment (not something they would have been aware of or cared much about).
For one thing, Roman concrete does not require the high temperatures needed to produce modern Portland cement, which helps create environmental problems. Roman concrete structures (e.g. the Pantheon, the Colosseum, various bridges, etc.), have lasted millennia, whereas modern concrete can start deteriorating within 50 years! Can this Roman construction material be used in large-scale projects? Sure! The famous Colosseum (half of which was lost from earthquakes and later plundering of its materials) held up to 50,000 people. The Imperial public baths of Rome were huge expanses of concrete, marble, and sculptures. The largest bath enclosed a space of over 10 acres.
The week has been focused on Mark’s in-person, “preflight check” for the big AI panel. It seems that most of this prep consisted of insults, childish boasts, and a dose of self-righteous anger from Kelly Welly. On the other hand, I’m more convinced than I was on Monday that Cricket Bro’s physique is faked. In Panel 1, “BRING YOU A GAME” should have been written as “BRING YOUR ‘A’ GAME” or “BRING YOU’RE A–GAME”. Sometimes I get a bit nerdy.
Art Dept. I want to have something more positive to say about the drawing and compositions. I truly do. Rivera has drawn much more inventive panels in the past, though much of her current compositional output is humdrum. By the way, do you think Cricket Bro’s somewhat deflated or lumpy physique in panel 3 is just more drawing inconsistency or a clue about his phony inflated physique (and ego)?
Well, there is the question of why Rivera moved from the sweeping view of a large room to more close-up compositions like we see today. Panel1 and Panel 2 could have been combined into a large panel, for example. Otherwise, why bother showing the wide views at all? Wasn’t the intent, with the single chair in the large room, to make Mark feel isolated, small, and vulnerable?
So, what’s on your mind? Any thoughts or observations to share? While I try to calibrate and limit my out-and-out snarkiness, feel free to indulge in your own, as you wish.
Okay, so today is just another round of insulting and dissing Mark. Can we please move on?
You can call me dense, but I just don’t get Mark’s comment in panel 3. Is he talking about himself? It can’t be Cricket Bro, who is not a writer. I’m open to explanations! I don’t even get it what it means.
Although I indicated a bit ago that this would be another foray into silliness and outright tomfoolery, there are also unintended follies along the way. Cricket Bro’s fantasy “action figure” pose (like those cheap toys from the 1980s) and anatomy in panel 1 is one of them. It doesn’t even look like him. The more I look at it, the creepier it looks. Rivera might want to study comic book action heroes for better inspiration. Poor Cricket Bro’s anatomy (panel 2) looks like it was made up; even the lines are just a haphazard hash. Not sure why!
Rivera’s constant need to present this strip in a gag format (even when the gags don’t work) does little to improve the storyline. In fact, it’s a real distraction!
So, it isn’t that Mark Trail gets the weird jobs while Kelly gets the meat-and-potatoes assignments. We get it, Kelly. The Men’s Club still wants to enforce the old rules. Perhaps that is why Cricket Bro and Kelly Welly arranged to have Mark sit in this singular, make-a-statement chair (or throne?) stuck in the middle of the room, to give him a false sense of importance as they start cutting him down. It’s a tag-team double whammy, as Cricket Bro dropkicks Mark on his masculinity while Kelly body slams his professional standing.
Kelly Welly has moved on from a mere journalist rival to nemesis status. I’m confused, though. Is nature journalism the ‘sad little industry’ Kelly references in panel 1 or the ‘environmental’ industry?
Panel 3 is interesting for its background, which loses most of its meaning in the black & white world of newspaper publishing. I don’t reckon it takes a lot of imagination to figure out the symbolism here, and my sense of decorum restricts me from having to state the obvious. It’s a rather bold statement , all the same.
Art Dept. This room reminds me more and more of the rooms in the German Expressionist movie, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Who knows!? Maybe Kelly is a better nature journalist, which is why Mark gets the weird and silly assignments. Of course, this sets up a real conundrum for Rivera. Can Kelly Welly be as good—or better—than Mark, in his own comic strip? Or is Bill Ellis a secretive, conniving SOB for sending both Mark and Kelly on the same assignment to see who submits the better story?
But maybe Kelly will once again be doomed by her delusions and lack of a brand name, bound for another humiliating return to the Mark TrailPhantom Zone. Of course, given the stakes here and the serious nature of the subject, we should not expect Rivera to turn this story into a farrago of nonsense and superficialities. Right?
Wait, sorry. I already predicted that that is going to be the case, though that is hardly a revelation.
Okay, go with the flow? Cricket Bro’s new persona reminds me of a couple of people: one person is the fictional character “Flash” (Lord Flasheart) in the BlackAdder series IV (“Blackadder goes forth”), a pompous, vain figure and womanizer. Cricket Bro’s pose in panel 1 could be right out of that sitcom. The second person is an infamous, equally self-centered, contemporary character, who is unfortunately not fictional. I can’t speak for Rivera on whether Cricket Bro’s current persona is based on either person, but I would not be surprised either way.
Regarding the story development, I’m feeling a bit optimistic here, based on the hypothesis that this story is going to be a real cross-eyed, absurd tale without the pretense of actual danger or suspense. The very room these people are in, for example, remains mysterious. What is it all about? There is that unusual chair; the mirror on the wall behind a pedestal holding a plant (?); and the way Kelly Welly silently stands, as if mirroring the pedestal and plant.
Okay, Rivera got me! I took her seriously that the “To be continued” message was meant to signal the change to Cherry’s ongoing life. Instead, we get another week of Mark. So, is that what the message box was for, to let us know Mark’s story was continuing now?
Anyway, when I saw panel 1, I immediately thought Rivera is riffing off of The Phantom. I mean, what’s with that big, white chair? And why is Mark sitting in it? Why are there no other chairs? What a bizarre scene, like some cheapo science fiction show.
Taking all this at face value, it is hardly surprising that Cricket Bro uses this opportunity to ham it up and indulge in the kind of schoolyard insults we normally associate with politicians. Well, one or two of them. But all of this is non sequitur blather. What does it have to do with the conference? Was that just a sham, too? Or is it that Cricket Bro is such a narcissist that he can’t resist rubbing it in. Actually, I’m wondering whether this is all charade and that Cricket Bro’s “hot bod” is really only fake prosthetics or the result of steroid injections. Or maybe, just maybe … this is some kind of AI prank. Maybe the image of Cricket Bro is a faked and jazzed up AI image. So why not? This is a comic strip, right?
Art Dept. Getting back to panel 1, we are left with a mystery: Why is Rivera showing us this large, sparsely furnished room, with the characters drawn in the background? Was it to fit in the message box and dialog balloons? I can’t believe it is for to showcase the room, as the drawing is rather slapdash.
After blithely and indifferently assisting with the capture of a raccoon in LaGuardia Airport, Mark took the air and toured parts of Manhattan before going on to his pre-convention meeting. Mark has a penchant for verbal self-reflection and saw fit to voice his impressions along the way, apparently talking to himself. And for some unknown reason, Rivera decided to alter Mark’s personality and portray him as a clichéd Gomer Pyle visits the big city. “Shazam!” Not sure what the purpose of that change was. Mark may be a lot of things, but he was never a country bumpkin. Snuffy Smith has that role locked up.
When Mark arrived at the location for his meeting, he ran into long-time (but rarely seen during Rivera’s tenure) rival, Kelly Welly. The last time they had any significant dialog was in Rivera’s first Mark Trail adventure. Welly’s resentment for Mark has grown over time, and she somehow found out about Cricket Bro and his convention, so she attached herself to his company. She is now Mark’s official contact for the AI convention. He’s just thrilled.
If you are thinking this whole affair is some kind of elaborate “James Bond” setup for Mark, I agree. Revenge is the most likely cause because of Mark’s interference in the manatee abduction attempt. But we’ll have to wait another week to learn more, as Rivera has signaled she is turning the space over to Cherry (or maybe, Doc Davis). Well, perhaps Cherry is getting tired of her never-ending problems with Violet and will strike out in a different direction this time.
Mark wants to honor rats!? Egad, has Mark been eating the cheese again? Well, Rivera already covered pigeons, so I suppose these rats (known by various nicknames) are the next popular animal life form people think about when it comes to New York City.
Talk about wanting to get rid of illegal immigrants, this would be a better place for all of us to focus. The idea of rats running around cities, homes, and apartments does not make for fond memories. They are crawling laboratories of pathogens. They have also long been thought to be the spreaders of bubonic plague during the Black Death in the Middle Ages. But more recent research says no, it is rat fleas. Those are parasites hitching rides on the rats.
So, do these city rats have a positive purpose? Not as far as humanity is concerned. There is a lot of truce to the old insult, “You dirty rat!” I’ll laugh at lions, alligators, and black mambas (from a distance). As for flies, tics, and rats, send them all to the Antarctic.
Yes, Kelly must have been in Mark’s shadow, since we have not seen her since early 2021. Well, we have another change today: A buffed outCricket Bro (aka Rob Bettencourt). I’m not sure where he got bulked up, but I’d bet it wasn’t just from eating lots of crickets.
For those curious, Rivera does use the “To be continued” box now and then, but not regularly. In most cases, Rivera simply switches over between Mark’s adventure and Cherry’s without notification. As a general rule, Rivera devotes two or three weeks to Mark before switching to Cherry’s story.
Plotwise, Kelly’s aligning with Bettencourt presents the appearance of confrontation and drama, but to what end? This is just a conference, right? What could go wrong?
Art Dept. While this strip has evolved/devolved into a cartoony simplicity, I’ll give credit to Rivera for Mark’s depiction in panel 1. His lookback pose is quite solid and believable. Mark’s expression is properly curious and suspicious. He has a solidity and plausibility that is normally found lacking. To compare, just take a look at Mark’s depictions in yesterday’s strip. Of course, that gravitas gets left behind when we move on to panel 3.
As the popular cliché goes, “there is a lot to unpack here.” But first, from a storyline POV, I like the idea of Kelly Welly coming in as a counterpoint to Mark. It is still not clear how this matchup is going to work. First of all, her backstory in Rivera’s reboot is that Kelly no longer works for the same magazine Mark does (or did). She freelances, has her own large online following, and now works for Cricket Bro. This certainly seems to fill a lot of checkboxes for being a “nemesis.” But I’m holding out for more info.
In this clip from 1/30/21, Kelly reluctantly gives Mark a compliment after deriding him for playing it safe and being a big shot. She holds a lot against Mark, but at the same time, shows some grudging respect for his position. So, the relationship was complicated then. How will it be handled now?
Art Dept. By the way, you might notice a strong difference in the art then, compared to Rivera’s art these days. Her earlier style had a “graphic novel” sensibility that gave the strip a grittier vision than even the pre-Rivera artists. And then there is what we see today. When Rivera brushed this early approach aside, so did she also cast off the best examples of real drama and mortality in the strip.
Still, Kelly Welly’s appearance at least presents us with the opportunity for seeing a more dynamic and uncertain situation develop for Mark. But what will actually happen? Every time I think it will, it didn’t. At the same time, don’t you think it is arrogant and hypocritical of Mark to cast suspicions on Kelly’s AI knowledge, after his own admissions of doubt and ignorance on the subject?
It’s not completely accurate to refer to Kelly Welly as Mark’s nemesis, at least in her original pre-Rivera incarnation. On the other hand, Cricket Brois an actual nemesis. Kelly Welly, as long-time readers know, was Mark’s journalistic rival in the pre-Rivera (or Classic) days, always trying to beat him out of an assignment or even mess up one of his assignments; but things usually didn’t work out for her. I suppose it is a matter of degree and motivation.
The last time Rivera featured Kelly—as far as I can recall—was in the first story she penned, where Mark had to investigate his Dad’s questionable business dealings (started October 13, 2020 “Woke Mark”). In that story, Mark felt the heat and wanted to give the assignment to Welly. Instead, she laid out her feelings about him and she did not hold back (this happens over several strips in late January 2021). In the end, she refused to take the story and told him to suck it up and do it himself. Kelly wasn’t about to be used as Mark’s “Get out of jail, free” card. The pre-Rivera Kelly would likely have taken the assignment. However, the current Kelly Welly Reboot is a cut from new cloth.
Yes, the New York subways certainly are famous, though not exactly in the manner Mark Trail is suggesting.
I’m not sure why Rivera started making Mark act like a country rube visiting the Big City. I think Rivera could have done the “personal tour” with a standard-issue Mark Trail broadcasting his commentary to whomever passed him by.
But this is not really a story at this point. It is more like a long TV commercial selling you on why you should visit New York City. Heck, maybe Rivera has a more personal motive in mind.
Art Dept. I don’t know how to explain this. In looking at the street dancers, they seem to have a real sense of mass and volume in their bodies, unlike the more cartoony, flat figures Rivera usually uses for Mark and the other regulars.
The New York pizza store pictured here is called “Pizza My ❤”, which is really a popular family-owned pizza empire in the San Francisco area. There do not appear to be any of their stores in Manhattan, or anywhere outside of San Francisco! Well, if Rivera gets free pizza for this plug, good on her. It’s always been a tried-and-true marketing ploy.
Alas, Rivera seems to relish making Mark seem like Goober from Mayberry: “And they even have indoor outhouses!” Let’s face it: the wide-eyed “Hick from Hicksville” expression that Mark is wearing wears on my ability to avoid pure snarking. And how does this self-indulgence add to the main plotline?
Is Mark talking for our benefit (as opposed to using standard thought balloons) or is he recording this for his blog site? Let’s give Mark some points for deciding to blend in a bit by wearing a summer jacket. At least we know that Mark actually is capable of modifying his attire when needed. Oh, there was that time when he sported cowboy boots, a kerchief, and Stetson hat to trick out his lumberjack attire.
So, Mark discovered The High Line elevated walkway in West Manhattan. Good for him! We can see in panel 2 and panel 3 that Mark must be very impressed by the walkway, given those elaborate triple emenata lines extending above his head. I wonder how he’ll react if he goes far enough north and discovers Central Park?
Action a-plenty this past week! Mark flew into the Big Apple, impressed and overwhelmed by the city’s size and activity. Mark took on a kind of “country cousin goes to the Big City” persona. Strange.
In the airport, Mark continued to be amazed and dismayed by the crowds and the noise. His anxiety cleared up upon hearing a callout: “Someone help! Is there a nature expert in the house?” The words were music to Mark’s strained ears. He navigated around the milling crowd of passengers to make his way to the caller. There he saw a raccoon hanging on a cord from the airport’s ceiling!
It’s a bit confusing at this point regarding the number of people involved. Hair colors kept changing, as did clothing. It’s possible these were airport skycaps, as regular reader Daniel P. suggested; or maybe animal control staff; or maybe a mix of “security” people and others. Take your pick. Also, one person was holding a cage!
As Mark approached, the raccoon fell to the floor and started running towards the cage. Along the way, the raccoon jumped up and snatched some airline peanuts that Mark apparently was holding. Then he ran into the cage. Mark was no actual help, but he also spent no time finding out what actually was going on. He just walked on! Seems odd behavior to me. Regular reader, Mark “the Contrarian Commenter”, testified that “…it appears the past 3 days the dialog and artwork is more legible,” and thought maybe a ghost artist was filling in for Rivera. That’s quite a positive comment from Mark! So, what do you think? There is certainly a brighter tone and mood, perhaps contrasting with Mark’s earlier dark mood and the darker hues seen in the first several strips this past week.
Rivera sneaks in a subtle comment on immigration into today’s nature strip dealing with pigeons. I’m afraid I’m too dense to figure out the point or significance of the special typography of the title in panel 1. Any ideas? But as she often does, Rivera links the nature subject to the locality of Mark’s current story. From what I’ve read, pigeons use a variety of navigation techniques, in addition to sensing magnetic fields. But I have no idea what “Bungle the air” means (panel 5). Do you?
Well, I reckon regular reader Daniel P. and I were both wrong. Those uniformed individuals look to be animal control officers. At least, that’s what I’m going with, since who else would have a cage on hand? On the other hand, why would two—presumably trained—animal control officers need assistance? Some questions just can’t be answered, like some punchlines (panel 4) shouldn’t be delivered.
Art Dept. Well, today has to be a first. Has anybody ever seen a full-face image of Mark? I certainly don’t mean the common three-quarter faces we usually see, but an actual look-in-the-mirror face (panel 2). Let me know when and where, if you recall. I also don’t mean background occurrences, either. It has to be a foreground, “portrait”-sized image.
Mark’s full-face is a bit dodgy, as the mouth slants while the jaw remains centered. Still, this face breaks new ground in another way, as Mark “breaks the fourth wall” and appears to interact directly with us, his readers. This fourth wall narrative technique goes back at least to ancient Greek tragedy, with its Chorus being the narrator to the audience. The technique has been used ever since, in theater, movies, and animated cartoons.
But I think one of the most inventive uses of this “break the fourth wall” narration technique was in the early seasons of The Burns and Allen TV show (1950 on). George Burns would sometimes literally step out of the set (or stand in front of it) and talk to the live audience about the episode in progress. Then he would walk back into the show. You can find episodes on YouTube. If you are lucky, you might find an episode or two where Burns goes upstairs in his garage to turn on his TV and watch some of the very show he is in. Genius! It was just surreal.
Sometimes you read a story so amazing you just have to sit down (or stand up), take a deep breath, and ask somebody to slap you upside the head to see if you are dreaming. Then again, in this episode we are supposed to accept the fact that a raccoon supposedly found its way into an airport, located an opening in the drop-ceiling, and decided to swing on some of the electrical wiring. Until it fell.
Then the raccoon illogically decided to run towards a cage that just happened to be available, while at the same time stealing some airline peanuts from the hand of Mark, en passant. Well of course, Mark just happened to have them (Never mind that airlines have not served peanuts on flights since 2011 because of peanut allergies and the fear of massive lawsuits). And then the raccoon continued towards the cage trap, rather than skedaddling away.
Sounds incredible? Ludicrous? Far-fetched? Well, let’s remember that Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail strip is more absurdist comedy than drama; more Crocodile Dundee than Steve Irwin: Crocodile Hunter.
Well sure, this could turn out to be a raccoon that escaped from this very cage. But would that be just too conventional? Too predictable? Too “Ed Dodd”?
Art Dept. And furthermore, I think that Rivera’s art is not designed this way because of her inability to mimic Ed Dodd; but rather, to support the absurdist comedy of her writing (whatever we think of it). It seems to me that Rivera’s irreverent tone is designed to attract younger people to better help spread an appreciation of nature in a way that the Original Style can no longer do.
Hoo-boy, don’t we have a chestful of fun today!? Continuing from yesterday, a shout for a Nature Expert brings Mark out of his stupor and off to the rescue. Of a raccoon. I find it terribly interesting that Rivera chooses to show Mark simultaneously in different places. In panel 1 Mark is just a few feet away from the raccoon, or aroughcun,as the Powhatan tribe used to call it. Yet in panel 3, Mark is in full running form to reach the hanging mammal.
Of course, this is one of those curious coincidences that almost always occurs on TV shows and movies, where a character gets to (or has to) use a special set of skills to resolve the immediate situation. You know what I mean, like when a loser bursts into the corner grocery to rob it while a police detective happens to be checking out the Charmin in aisle 2.
Yet,I am confused: Just which direction is the raccoon? Is he to the left of Mark (panel 1), the right (panel 2), or across the terminal (panel 3)? Could just be me, as I’m still gobsmacked by Mark’s curious use of antique phrases.
The Daily Trail 