“Sure, Venus! Since Mark is a nature photojournalist, he’d just love to support even more competition for jobs with Bill Ellis. I’m sure he’ll give you an amazing referral.”

But as a supposed wordsmith, Mark can sometimes be casual with his adjectives. Venus Verité may have come through to help Mark complete his article with her photos, but is that being a lifesaver? No doubt, he is using the term in its metaphorical sense. But it’s a poor pun, all the same.

I might be slow but I don’t know what Mark is talking about with “spreading the word” in panel 2. Does he mean spreading the word about their flash flood, or about flash floods in general? I reckon he doesn’t mean spreading the word about the Hog Hunting Heroines. The less said, the better?

As a side note I do try to resist being too thorough or detailed in my posts, though the length of my posts argues against that aspiration <sigh!>. That is, I want to leave things you can bring up, if you are inclined. So if you have reactions to any post of mine or see anything in a strip that is worth a word or two, feel free to post a comment! The more you comment, the less I’ll feel inclined to include in my posts. Is that a win-win? One warning: There might be a short delay in your comment getting posted, as we had an issue with trolling a while ago and I had to enable some screening features.